With a prize pool of over $15 million and 606 ambitious poker players raring to go, this years World Poker Tour World Championship at the Bellagio in Las Vegas was always going to be exciting, and last night (Monday) Joe Bartholdi finally beat Davidson Matthew in a thrilling heads up with massive bets at stake.
Finishing in the early hours of the morning after an exhausting fight over several days through a field that originally numbered 606 players, Bartholdi won $3 760 165 for first place and entered the World Poker Tour annals as one of the biggest money winners in WPT history. Davidson Matthew collected the second placing prize of $1 903 950 after a magnificent final performance where 25K chips were flying and blinds went up to 400K-800K with a 100K ante.
Starting the heads up at 12.33 am Bartholdi held $21.675 million worth of chips and Davidson $8.35 million. It was all over by 1.46 am.
The final table of six top players started the action at 7.37 pm with James Van Alstyne a favourite with a commanding stack of chips. Joe Bartholdi was around a million chips shorter, whilst Claus Nielsen and Davidson Matthew had nearly 6 million apiece and could have easily taken the lead with one big pot. Men “The Master” Nguyen and Roland De Wolfe came in short-stacked but with the ability to jump right back into things. With big blinds (60K-120K) and only 6 players at the table, the stage was truly set for exciting action.
When the eliminations started at 8.17 pm Men “The Master” Nguyen was the first of the champs to head home, taking a 6th position prize purse of $292 915.
At 9.26 pm it was James Van Alstyne’s time to depart in 5th place with $439 375 after a skillful performance. He was followed at 10.46 pm by Claus Nielsen at number four with $659 120 and at 12.02 am by Roland de Wolfe in the number 3 slot with $1 025 205 after a fine tournament performance – not bad for a freeroll.