Latvia’s Vitalijs Zavorotnijs took down the WPT Barcelona last night to earn his career’s largest cash and join the elite WPT Champions Club
Vitalijs Zavorotnijs came through a field of 1,227 fellow contenders to claim the WPT Barcelona Main Event title and the first-place prize of €600,000. The player entered the elite WPT Champions Club by taking down the second-largest Main Event of this season of the popular poker series.
The WPT Main Event arrived in sunny Barcelona with a guaranteed prize pool of €3 million. The event drew a behemoth field of 1,227 entrants, ready to challenge their skills and luck in a bid to win the title and the lion’s share of the money. The massive interest in the prestigious tournament generated a €3,570,570 prize pool. Aside from the champion, the players occupying the top 151 positions ended up with a payout.
The final day of the WPT Barcelona took place yesterday at the host venue – Casino Barcelona. The casino is no stranger to big poker events as it has been a regular host to a number of prestigious poker festivals, such as the European Poker Tour.
Action on Sunday began with the six players who made it through to the official final table of the Main Event. Zavorotnijs co-led the pack of six at the beginning of the day. During four-handed play, the player won a 15-million pot that catapulted him way ahead of his remaining fellow final tablists. The Latvian poker pro never looked backed from that point on.
Heads-Up Action
The heads-up match of the WPT Barcelona was a hasty ordeal. It took Zavorotnijs just three hands to finish off his final opponent – Bulgaria’s Boris Kolev. On what turned out to be the final hand in play, Zavorotnijs raised to 425,000 pre-flop with king-nine suited and Kolev three-bet to 1.7 million with ace-queen offsuit. The eventual champion called to see the flop deliver queen-jack-flop that gave him a gutshot straight draw. Kolev hit a top pair.
A seven appeared on the turn that further improved Zavorotnijs’s odds to win. Kolev moved all in for 5.7 million when the turn card appeared on the board. Zavorotnijs asked for a count and took a while before flipping a calling chip. The player hit the much-needed flush on the river. Kolev received a €375,000 consolation prize for his deep run in the tournament.
As for Zavorotnijs, his win at Casino Barcelona came just under a month after his first poker victory of the year. The player took down the OlyBet Kings of Tallinn €1,100 Main Event for then best career cash of €85,300. Including last night’s win, the poker pro from Latvia now has more than $1 million in live tournament earnings.
The brand new WPT Main Tour champion said that he will now spend some time with his wife, who also took part in the WPT Barcelona Main Event, and their four-year-old daughter before heading to Vegas for the WPT Tournament of Champions, which he secured a seat into by winning the Main Event in Barcelona.
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