Poker star Darren Elias has just won the latest World Poker Tour Main Event, held at the Sonesta Maho Beach Resort and Casino Royale in St. Maarten. He took $127,680 home for his first place, defeating the not particularly famous Christophe Rosso. What makes his victory special, is the fact that he has just became the first poker player to ever win two consecutive same-season World Poker Main Events.
His accomplishment can only be partially compared to Marvin Rettenmaier’s who won two consecutive WPT Championships back in 2012, although they were not held in the same season. In other words, Elias has just made history in the world of poker, setting a unique world record. He also became the first player to win two Main Events after Tuan Le and Daniel Negreanu, who achieved this quite some time ago in Season III.
The WPT Caribbean event gathered 118 players, creating a pool of $366,272. It was held in a period of four days. In the beginning of the event’s final table Rosso was in possession of more than a half of all the chips. Due to this, short stacks were quickly eliminated. Elias managed to slowly but steadily overcome Rosso’s advantage. It took the winner a total of 145 hands to defeat all his opponents. Eventually, Rosso just could not stand a chance against the champion’s AA, followed by 7 and 5, and he had to reconcile to his second place.
Christophe Rosso was sent home with $64,900 for his runner-up position. And George Griffith was awarded $42,100 for his third place. In addition to Elias, there was another player who was trying to his second WPT big event. Mike Linster was the champion of the bestbet Jacksonville event back in Season XI. This time, however, he only reached forth place. The final table hosted yet another experienced poker player – Dan Murariu from Romania. He is a two-time winner of Unibet Open. Murariu managed to enter the list of the final six, winning $17,370 of the overall pool.
As mentioned above, Darren Elias is no stranger to the poker scene. His previous big win was at WPT Borgata Poker Open, which took place in September. There he took $843,744 of the total prize pool, created by all the 1,226 participants. He can also boast of numerous victories from online poker tournaments. He shared in an earlier interview that he has always dreamed of winning a big tournament. Now his name is in the record book and his seat in the World Poker Tour Championship is guaranteed. What is more, Elias’ great performance during the latest poker events has won him more than $1 million.
Another WPT – the so-called WPT bestbet Bounty Scramble, is currently taking place in Jacksonville, Florida.
