The WPT has just crowned its latest Main Tour victor. Scotland’s Niall Farrell, former EPT champion and one of his home country’s most profitable players, topped the field of the partypoker WPT Caribbean $5,000 Main Event held at Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Punta Cana over the past several days. His prize for being the last man standing was a nice payout of $335,000.
Winning a Main Event on WPT’s Main Tour schedule, Farrell also secured a seat in the Tournament of Champions, a season-ending event to be played at Seminole Hard Rock Casino in Hollywood, Florida next April. The Scotsman will face other Main Tour champions from throughout Season 15 of the popular poker tour to celebrate the end of the season in style and with quality poker action.
Played over five days, the partypoker WPT Caribbean Main Event drew 323 entries, with those creating a prize pool of $1,456,892. The six-handed final table was reached and set around noon on Wednesday. Farrell was one of the short stacks at that point, holding only 20 big blinds. Six-handed play commenced with Anthony Augustino as the chip leader with 3,435,000.
It was a rather short final table. It took only 74 hands for the winner’s name to be announced. Despite his uncomfortable position at the start of six-handed play, Farrell managed to improve, to gain momentum, and to take the best possible advantage of it.
Eliminating Augustino in 3rd place, Farrell found himself entering the heads-up match with a substantial lead over opponent Troy Quenneville. And Farrell needed only one hand to finish off Quenneville. On Hand #74, the Scotsman moved all in and his opponent called for his last 1,540,000, tabling [Ks][Js] against Farrell’s [Ac][5d].
The board ran out [Ah][Kh][7s][Qd][6d]. With Farrell clearly making the better pair, there was nothing else left for Quenneville but to collect the second-place payout of $220,000.
As mentioned above, Anthony Augustino finished 3rd in the event, despite his significant chip advantage at the start of the final table. The player collected $140,000 for his performance. Colin Moffatt took home $105,392 for his fourth-place finish. Yiannis Liperis finished 5th, good for $80,000. Stephen Woodhead rounded out the official final table for $66,000.
Notable players who cashed in the event but failed to reach its final table were Sam Greenwood, who finished 30th, Ankush Mandavia, who took 27th place, and former WPT champion Keven Stammen, who scored an eighth-place finish.
Including last night’s victory, Farrell’s live tournament winnings now amount to more than $3.3 million, making him Scotland’s second most profitable player of all time. Last year, the Scotsman won the EPT Season 12 Malta €5,300 Main Event for his biggest live cash of €534,330.
