Farid Yachou’s first trip to the States was more than successful as this season’s WPT Amsterdam champion entered poker history as the first Monster WPT Tournament of Champions winner. A few hours ago, the Dutch player defeated Vlad Darie in an all-European heads-up match to collect the amount of $381,600 in prize money and the special winner’s package that includes a 2016 Corvette and a Hublot King Power Titanium watch, among other exciting prizes.
Yachou started the official six-handed final table as one of the short stacks. However, he quickly caught up and took the lead in what turned out to be a relatively short final table. Play lasted only 72 hands, with heads-up match taking 12 hands for the winner to be determined.
Overall, the inaugural WPT Tournament of Champions attracted a field of 64 entries, among which were all the winners throughout WPT’s latest season as well as winners from previous seasons. The former were secured with a seat into the tournament for winning a Main Event to take place within Season XIV of the popular poker series. The latter had to pay $15,000 buy-in.
Entries created a prize pool of $1,060,000, which was distributed to the top 8 finishers, with min-cash totaling $38,160. Thus, Yevgeniy Timoshenko, who finished 8th, and Andy Frankenberger, who took 7th place, received a share of the money, but were just short of luck to take a seat at the official six-handed final table.
Six-handed play started with Jonathan Jaffe as the chip leader, holding a total of 996,000. The player won the 2014 WPT Montreal C$3,850 Main Event. As mentioned above, Yachou was second-to-last in chips at the time cards were thrown in the air.
The first elimination for the day occurred on Hand #38 when Darren Elias was busted in 6th place by Yachou to take the amount of $58,300 for his performance in the tournament. Noah Schwartz left the final table only two hands later. His 5th place secured him with a payout of $74,200.
Start-of-the-day chip leader Jonathan Jaffe hit the rail in 4th place on Hand #45 of play. The player collected a payout of $95,400. It took 15 for hands before another finalist left the final table. Michael Mizrachi was the one to be busted in 3rd place. His share of the prize pool amounted to $140,450.
Two-handed play between Yachou and Darie started with the two players being almost even in chips. Darie took a slight chip lead over his opponent but Yachou quickly retook his leading position and did not relinquish it until the very end of the tournament. As already mentioned, two-handed match lasted for 12 hands.
On what turned out to be the last hand for the night and the event as a whole, Darie raised to 50,000 pre-flop and Yachou called. The flop came [8h][2h][2c] and Yachou checked. Darie bet 50,000 and Yachou check-raised to 250,000. Darie took a few seconds to consider his next move and eventually called. The [10c] appeared on the turn. Yachou bet 200,000 and Darie took a while before calling.
The [8d] came on the river and Yachou moved all in for 1,585,000. Darie needed about 20 seconds before calling with [Kc][7d]. Yachou turned [As][2d], thus winning the pot and the first-ever Monster WPT Tournament of Champions. Darie collected $224,190 for his runner-up finish.
As for Yachou himself, he took home the first-place prize of $381,600, including a $15,000 seat into the Season XV WPT Tournament of Champions. In addition to this, the player also received a winner’s package, which included:
A 2016 Corvette
A Hublot King Power Titanium watch
A BBO Poker Tables custom premium table
An Aurae Solid Gold MasterCard
A seat into the WPT-presented Tiger’s Poker Night
A golf round with two friends of choice and Matt Savage at the Shadow Creek golf course
