Amidst a crowd of exuberant fans, USA’s Daniel Sepiol and Greece’s Georgios Sotiropoulos engaged in a gripping heads up battle for the most prestigious World Poker Tour title. These two finalists emerged as the last WPT World Championship contenders remaining from a vast field of 3,835 entries. Both were guaranteed their first ever seven figure payday, and both were vying for their first ever WPT home-run.
Sepiol carried in a massive 124 bb stack to Sotiropoulos’ 29 bb. Twenty hands in the three-time WSOP bracelet holder Sotiropoulos doubled up on a board that Sepiol misread and thought had won. Following an ICM deal, Sotiropoulos claimed the next two hands to take the lead. Five hands later Sepiol bit back with a huge double up then closed it out immediately after.
This was Sepiol’s first ever seven figure score. His incredible milestone win will be forever memorialized with his name etched alongside hundreds of WPT champions on the Mike Sexton Champions Cup. On Sepiol’s road to victory, here were his stats:
End of Day 1: 471,000 (58 bb) – 1,040 players
End of Day 2: 1,665,000 (111 bb) – 480 players (ITM reached)
End of Day 3: 5,010,000 (83 bb) – 132 players
End of Day 4: 2,800,000 (14 bb) – 45 players
End of Day 5: 27,900,000 (47 bb) – 16 players
End of Day 6: 34,300,000 (29 bb) – 6 players
The WPT World Championship ran from December 12 to 20 featuring an enormous $40 Million guarantee. 3,835 coughed up the $10,400 buy in for an overlay of $2.4 Million. The bubble burst at the end of Day 2 with 480 players entering the money round. The last of the Asian hope bowed out in Day 5 with Ren Lin (20th), James Chen (30th), and Ankit Ahuja (34th) each walking away with a substantial six figures.
Final 6 payouts
| 1 | Daniel Sepiol | USA | $5,282,954* |
| 2 | Georgios Sotiropoulos | Greece | $4,167,246* |
| 3 | Andrew Lichtenberger | USA | $2,798,700 |
| 4 | Chris Moorman | England | $2,095,300 |
| 5 | Ben Heath | England | $1,538,100 |
| 6 | Artur Martirosian | Russia | $1,207,000 |
*Heads up deal; winner payout includes $10,400 ticket to the 2024 WPT World Championship
Final 6 livestream
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mImPaeLRJfU
You can read up on the previous days via the recap links at the bottom of the page and all the detailed action via the Live Updates on WPT.com.
REN LIN captures Alpha8 title after deep run at World Championship
The $50,000 buy-in high roller Alpha8 event showcased a wealth of talent, featuring some of the world’s most elite players. The field included luminaries such as Bin Weng, Adrian Mateos, Stephen Chidwick, Igor Yaroshevsky, Brad Owen and Alex Foxen, alongside distinguished Asian players Seonguk Hun, Danny Tang, Biao Ding, and Quan Zhou. The event drew a total of 69 entries for a prize pool of $3,346,500.
The two-day race concluded with China’s Ren Lin keeping the hot running American pro Jason Koon at bay to seize the $1,045,781 top prize and the unique Alpha8 trophy.
| 1 | Ren Lin | China-USA | $1,045,781 |
| 2 | Jason Koon | USA | $669,300 |
| 3 | Martin Kabrhel | Czech Republic | $468,510 |
| 4 | Biao Ding | China | $334,650 |
| 5 | Seth Davies | USA | $249,314 |
| 6 | Nikita Kuznetsov | Russia | $192,424 |
| 7 | Brad Owen | USA | $152,266 |
| 8 | Isaac Haxton | USA | $124,494 |
| 9 | Justin Bonomo | USA | $108,761 |
The past few years have been a tremendous success for the Chinese descent American resident player Lin. Since October 2021, he has collected 24 six-figure payouts, 7 WSOP final tables, 16 PokerGO Tour final tables, 2 victories and now, his first ever seven-figure payout. This immense victory came just two days after Lin finished 20th at the World Championship for $236,300.
Sign up to WPT Global – softest fields!
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Read our WPT Global review or register here:
https://tracking.wptpartners.com/visit/?bta=22&nci=5373
Or contact us for any questions.
*All photos by WPT
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Tricia David
Tricia David has long experience as a recreational poker player and has been covering poker events since 2010 for numerous outfits in Asia. She spent one year working part time with Poker Portal Asia then became editor and lead writer for all event coverage of the Philippine Poker Tour (PPT). Under the PPT, she overlooked content for their website, and produced live updates on all their events. In addition, she served as the live and online events website content writer for the Asian Poker Tour. Currently, she does live events reporting in Asia for online news site Somuchpoker and is also one of their news contributors.
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