The Winner of the WPT Legends

(Photo: Worldpokertour.com)

When the smoke cleared and the TV lights came up on September 1st, there were only six players left in the WPT Legends of Pokertournament: Pat Lyons, Benjamin Zamani, Upeshka De Silva, Todd Peterson, William Vo and Rafael Oliviera.

All six had put up their $4,000 buy-in along with 687 other players. They were guaranteed at least $85,760, but none of them would have had their eyes on anything but the title and the $615,346 that went with it.

In the end though, the money, the title and the glory all went to Pat Lyons, an American pro who was running hot off the back of his earlier quarter million dollar win for first place in $1,100 buy-in Arizona Poker Championship a few weeks before.

(Photo: Worldpokertour.com)

And Then There Were Six...

Seven hands in the table got its first casualty when Rafael Oliveira got it in with a pair of jacks against De Silva’s three sixes. Oliveira went home with the $85,760 prize plus heartache for sixth, quickly followed by William Vo, who started the final table with the chip lead, his A-K was beaten when De Silva hit jacks. His fifth place finish was worth $113,105.

Four way the action picked up Todd Peterson went out for $149,715 when his A-Q vs De Silva’s T-T pre hit first a queen, then a ten. Having taken all those chips, De Silva then handed them all on after his jacks failed to hold up against Q-T and De Silva took $198,720 while Pat Lyons took the chip lead.

(Photo: Worldpokertour.com)

Heads Up

Going into heads-up play, Pat Lyons was sitting behind a mountain of chips about 14.6 million tall, throwing an ominous shadow over Benjamin Zamani’s 6 million. It took just 18 hands to decide who would go home with the $341,412 boobie-prize for second/first-of-the-losers. When Lyons looked down at an A8os he shoved for the lot and Zamani called with just the A2os.

After the board rolled out tantalisingly close to being a straight with: 9-9-7-J-T rainbow Zamani’s dreams died and Pat Lyons must have felt like a god as he collected a career-win-doubling $615,346. Clearly the pigeon on his t-shirt was just a decoy.