The Season XIII WPT World Championship was completed last night with Asher Conniff emerging victorious to capture the first-place prize of $973,683 and a number of other awards. The player topped a field of 239 entries who created a prize pool of $3,462,050.
It is interesting to note that Conniff entered this year’s WPT World Championship by accident. The player was trying to register for the NJCOP High Roller tournament, but joined a $1,000 online satellite for the WPT event instead.
Day 5 of the Championship saw 6 players returning for the final table. It started with Alexander Lakhov as the chip leader with 4,110,000. He was followed by Conniff with 2,360,000 and Brian Yoon with 1,970,000.
Tony Dunst was the first to leave the final table. He was eliminated in 6th place by Conniff and received $173,873 for his efforts. Two hours later, Ray Qartomy also fell victim to the soon-to-be-champion. The player was paid $208,647 for his 5th place.
Three-time WPT champion Carlos Mortensen was eliminated about twenty minutes later by Lakhov. He took home the amount of $267,764. The player was followed by Yoon, whose 3rd place secured him with $330,358. With his elimination, the heads-up play between Lakhov and Conniff was set.
Initially, Conniff held more than 9,800,000 in chips against his opponent’s 2,100,000. It did not take long before the final hand occurred. Conniff went all-in pre-flop with [As][Qh] against Lakhov’s [10h][6h]. The board showed [7h][5d][2s][4s][Ks] and it was the New York-born player who was crowned the Season XIII WPT World Champion.
Apart from being awarded $973,683 of the entire prize pool, he also received a Hublot Oceanographic 4000 Watch, a pair of Monster headphones, the special WPT Champions Trophy, and a seat into the Season XIV WPT World Championship. As for Lakhov, his runner-up finish secured him with the amount of $573,779.
As mentioned above, Conniff entered the Championship by mere chance. Minutes after winning the trophy and his biggest live cash so far, the player commented that he has been working really hard to “get places in poker” and that he was extremely excited and happy to “win a tournament on [his] home turf.”
Now, Conniff’s winnings from live tournaments total a little more than $1.3 million.
