The 13th season of the World Poker Tour started on Wednesday with its first final at Merit Classic North Cyprus. The tournament has received over 400 applications and those who did not manage to pass Day 1 were given the opportunity to rebuy another try on the same day. There were six finalists, each bringing a sizable amount of chips to the table.
The winner was Alexander Lakhov who managed to defeat well known professionals, such as Dmitry Gromov and Toby Lewis, as well as the former champion of the European PTG, who began the final table play as a chip leader – Mr. Chouity.
At the start of the final table, Chouity managed to keep his lead by getting a few amazing cards. Devkin joined the action by trying another short stack with pocket Queens, but was unfortunately eliminated as Chouity had pocket Kings. The leader continued his dominance after pocket Ace-ing a million chips all-in by Miller. Miller was eliminated as well, taking the fifth spot.
These early eliminations seem to have woken up the other three contestants, who had no intention of leaving Chouity to get the WPT prize so easy. Lewis and Gromov dueled their blind stacks and Lewis managed to save himself with an all-in, but lost the next round as Gromov had A-J to Lewis’s A-10.
The elimination of Lewis brought Gromov a step closer to Chouity with only three hundred chips difference. Lakhov was not far behind either. The next clash changed the turn of the game, when Gromov received a third 2 card in his stack and won the bet of nine million chips and eliminated Chouity.
Lakhov and Gromov were left to fight for the big prize with an early lead for Gromov. However, Lakhov had a special surprise for his opponent, when he added another Jack to his J-9-7 rainbow flop which got him the needed lead of 2 million stack over Gromov. The two finalists dueled for another hour, but Lakhov somehow always managed to keep his lead and survive to the end to get the first place of the WPT Merit Classic North Cyprus.
The winners got the following money prizes – Lakhov, who finished first, was awarded $325,400, the second place was taken by Gromov with $215,000, the third place was for Chouity with $140,000, Lewis ranked fourth with $102,820, the fifth place was for Miller with $77,000, and Devkin finished sixth with $62,000.
By winning the tournament, Lakhov also received a WPT Champions Cup engraved with his initials and was also provided with a seat for the WPT World Championship. The WPT is now going back to the United States where the WPT Borgata Poker Open is about to begin this Sunday in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The WPT Borgata Poker Open has a secured starting prize pool of $3 million. There will be three more poker tournaments of this kind this year at the Atlantic City casinos.
