Mike Kosowski Beats Negreanu, Wins the Million Dollar Challenge!
- Filed under: Daniel Negreanu, poker tv
- Date: Dec 28,2009
The million dollar prize money didn’t come easily for Mike Kosowski ,53,, a former policeman from New York City who was severely injured on 9/11, as he had to beat Father Andrew Trapp, Iraq war veteran Denny Luna, and liquor salesman Brian Barboza in the Challenge of Champions, and finally Daniel Negreanu in a heads up.
Kosowski (pictured in the middle celebrating), who was trapped with eight other people in WTC’s south tower when it collapsed, knows how lucky he was to survive that day.
“I was one of the luckiest guys in the world to survive that day. And now this.”
Kosowski was forced to retire from the police forces due to the injuries he suffered and he started playing online poker. He had only played poker a few times before he was injured, but after the injury he started to play up to six hours of poker in a day.
In the Challenge of Champions, Kosowski, who had already busted Luna out of the tournament, had to hit an one-outer to eliminate Barboza in third place. The Catholic priest Trapp couldn’t stop Kosowski either and the heads up between the poker pro and the NYC cop was set.
The luck was on his side again in the heads up, as Kosowski found just the right cards in right places. On the final hand Kosowski found himself in a very bad spot on the flop after calling a preflop all-in push from Negreanu with 5-7 against K-4 of the Canadian. The flop came K-9-6 and Kosowski was in a need of a miracle. A miraculous eight, the new lucky number of Kosowski, hit on the river making Kosowski a happy millionaire.
After the successful first season of the TV show, a new season has already announced and qualifiers for season 2 are already running at PokerStars.
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