Alex Foxen wins record-breaking WPT Five Diamond title, potentially securing historical Back to Back GPI POY Title

Alex Foxen wins WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic for $1.69M

Alex Foxen topped the record-breaking field of 1,035 entries at the Season XVIII World Poker Tour Five Diamond World Poker Classic winning $1.69M USD for his first-place finish.

Back in 2017, Foxen came in one place short of winning the exact same title.

“It feels, I don’t know… surreal,” Foxen said in the moments following the win. “It’s kind of hard to put into words, but it feels amazing. The last time I got to this spot, I was a little bit disappointed in the way that I played heads up. It’s just incredible to get the opportunity again and be fortunate enough to pull out the win. I don’t have words.”

This year’s $10,400 buy-in WPT Five Diamond generated a prize pool of $10,039,500 but only the top 130 finishers received a piece with min-cashes starting from $18,530.

Final Table Action

Foxen started the day as one of the big stacks in the field. He came in second in chips behind Danny Park. Foxen would then take the chip lead after hitting a runner-runner flush in a huge pot against Park.

Foxen would continue his hot streak as he sends former WPT champion Jonathan Jaffe to the rail in sixth place. Foxen’s pocket nines held in a race against Jaffe’s king-queen.

On the other hand, Park’s demise would continue as his pocket tens failed to hold against Toby Joyce’s ace-queen sealing his fate as 5th place finisher.

Foxen entered the heads-up match with 29.5 million chips, a significant chip-lead over his opponent who only had 11.9 million to begin with. Foxen never yielded his commanding lead throughout the short heads-up match which only lasted nine hands.

The final hand saw Foxen limp the button and Joyce check in the big blind. The flop came Foxen bet 400,000 in position and Joyce check-raised to 1.1 million. Foxen three-bets and Joyce calls.

The turn brought in and Joyce checked. Foxen moved all in putting Joyce’s tournament life at risk. Joyce eventually calls with jack-nine only to be dominated by Foxen’s ace-jack.

The river landed a meaningless to end the tournament.

Joyce took home $1,120,040 for his second-place finish. Aside from having his name engraved in the WPT Champions Cup, Foxen also collected $1,694,995 and a $15,000 entry into the season-ending Tournament of Championships for his first-place finish.

The final table results are as follows:

1st – Alex Foxen – $1,964,995
2nd – Toby Joyce – $1,120,040
3rd – Seth Daves – $827,285
4th – Peter Neff – $617,480
5th – Danny Park – $465,780
6th – Jonathan Jaffe – $355,125

Unofficial back to back GPI POY Champion

After a first place finish at the World Poker Tour Five Diamond World Poker Classic, Foxen is now on the brink of winning back-to-back POY titles.

The GPI Player of the Year race, saw Bryn Kenney, Sean Winter, Khale Burns and Stephen Chidwick battle it out to claim top place. Foxen was sitting in tenth, but he knew that a second place finish or better at the WPT Five Diamond would get him to top spot.

Eric Danis, the president of the GPI tweeted that they would be double-checking all the results, making sure that there are no mistakes.

We will officially announce all @gpi Players of the Year on Wednesday, January 1st … we will be spending the next 10 days reviewing all results and obtaining any missing results

— Eric Danis (@EricDanisPoker) December 22, 2019

GPI Players of the year will be officially announced on Wednesday, January 1st.