Europe may be eagerly anticipating the start of the next EPT season and the upcoming World Series of Poker Europe, but back in the States it's business as usual as the World Poker Tour makes it latest stop in Sin City for the Legends of Poker. Of course, I was busy at the time, but many weren't as 373 piled into the Bellagio Casino, Las Vegas. Digging deep into their pockets the sea of amateurs and pros stumped up a familiar $10,000 each to help compile a prize pool of $3,520,738.After claiming two WSOP bracelets this summer and a final table at the Bellagio’s WPT event, John Phan put the exclamation mark on his current hot streak by coming up trumps in yet another live tournament. But it wasn't going to be easy...
As the final six players came to the table, the chip counts were as follows;
Seat 1. Trong Nguyen -- 980,000
Seat 2. Amit Makhija -- 3,225,000
Seat 3. Paul Smith -- 1,130,000
Seat 4. John Phan -- 2,415,000
Seat 5. Zachary Clark -- 2,025,000
Seat 6. Kyle Wilson -- 1,425,000
In the end, it came down to a heads-up battle between Phan and American Amit Makhija (right). The heads-up lasted more than three hours and a succession of huge pots saw the chiplead continuously swing from one to the other. As with many tournaments, it all came down to a race with Phan’s small pair of threes holding against the king-high of Makhija, giving him his first WPT title.With the win, Phan has now made an incredible three of the last six WPT final tables. That record, along with his stunning WSOP, makes him the form player in world poker right now and one of the greatest poker players in the world full stop.
1st John Phan -- $1,091,428
2nd Amit Makhija -- $563,320
3rd Zachary Clark -- $281,645
4th Paul Smith -- $246,450
5th Trong Nguyen -- $211,245
6th Kyle Wilson -- $176,035
courtesy of Poker Player Magazine & a smigden of Beagle