A number of records have been broken of late, but the one question that has been hovering around most people’s lips is, who will become the first person to win the poker trifecta and snap up a hattrick of WPT, EPT and WSOP titles? After Roland de Wolfe triumphed in the 2006 Dublin EPT, he became the hot favourite, but then when Daniel Negreanu joined the PokerStars team and committed himself to the European Poker Tour, he was also tipped as a potential front runner. There’s also the likes of Ram Vaswani, Barry Greenstein, Devlifish, Joe Hachem and co, all of whom would love to wrap up the honour.
However, this week, the record was finally broken by a player who has produced a quite spectacular record in a short period of time, yet remains a somewhat underrated entity. At the tender age of 22, Gavin broke Allen Cunningham’s record to become the youngest bracelet winner when he won a $3,000 Pot Limit Hold’em Event in 2004. Three years later, and with his attention diverted towards Europe, he earned himself 1.8 million Euros as Season 3’s EPT Grand Final Champion in Monte Carlo. And now, in 2008, he takes WPT Gold in Borgata to complete a magnificent treble.
With the usual motley crew of amateurs and pros alike assembling in the Borgata Casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey, the Main Event was the $10k No Limit Hold’Em freezeout which attracted 507 players and created a prizepool of $4,917,900.
Although esteemed pros such as Vanessa Rousso, Men Nguyen and Justin Bonomo were eliminated in 37th, 10th and 8th respectively for respectable in-the-money finishes, the biggest name joining Griffin at the final table would be 2007 WSOP Main Event finalist, Lee Watkinson.
However, although an invetiable favourite with two runner-up WPT finishes to his name, Watkinson was unable to improve on his previous performances, eventually crashing out in 5th when he ran Pocket Sevens into the Pocket Eights of Noah Schwartz.Instead, the latest WPT title would be fought out between Griffin and David Tran. Although Tran fought admirably, the Poker Gods weren’t on his side as his K-8s was outdrawn by Griffin’s Q-J on an A-9-8-Q-T board to give the latter the straight and, ultimately, the title.
An amicable, humble player, Gavin has quickly become a popular fixture on Tours both side of the Atlantic and proved himself to be one of poker’s fastest rising stars. Easily identified by his ever-changing hair colour, Gavin is frequently creating awareness for breast cancer after his girlfriend was diagnosed with the disease at the age of 20. A credit to the game and a worthy winner.
1st Gavin Griffin -- $1,401,109
2nd David Tran -- $737,685
3rd Thomas Hare -- $381,137
4th Noah Schwartz -- $331,958
5th Lee Watkinson – $282,779
6th Ervin Prifti -- $233,600