Success rains on Khan at Caesars tourney

It appears the key to success for some poker pros this past week was to take on some of the tournaments outside the major tours. First Clonie Gowen took down the World Poker Open main event in Mississippi, and now Hevad Khan has picked up a win in the Caesars Palace Classic main event.

The Caesars Palace Classic started its tournament series Oct. 16, and built up to a $10,000 championship event that started Oct. 28. More than 300 players anted up to play for the $1 million top prize, but it was Hevad Khan who walked away with the win.

Khan, better known online as RaiNKhaN, first got a taste of the poker spotlight as the infamous man seen on YouTube playing 26 sit-and-gos at once on a single monitor of his home computer. It wasn't until the 2007 Main Event, however, that the rest of the world got a taste of Khan as well.

After making the final table of the event, Khan said, "With a $10,000 buy-in and an $8 million first prize I'm going to enjoy every hand I play."

He was true to his word, often acting out for the cameras as his gregarious and easily excitable nature got the best (or the worst, depending on whom you ask) of him. But if you were watching the broadcast, you certainly couldn't miss who Khan was at the table.

He ended up out in sixth place, and he's been looking for a big live win ever since. He told PokerStars that after winning nearly $1 million for his Main Event finish, he had high hopes for 2008.

He didn't fare quite as well at the WSOP this year, although he did cash in a preliminary event as well as the Main Event again. He's also continued to cash in on tournament success on PokerStars this year, winning a Sunday Warm-Up for about $200k as well as coming in second in another Sunday Warm-up.

However, it wasn't until this Caesars Palace Classic win that he finally got the first $1 million win he was looking for.

The final-table results for the event were as follows:

Along with John Hennigan at the final table, there were a few other pros who kept things interesting as the tournament got down to the money.

Some of the familiar names in the cash list are Kathy Liebert, Sabyl Cohen-Landrum, Van Nguyen and Mike Sexton.