The World Poker Tour (WPT) Philippines is a wrap with Bulgaria’s Dimitar Blazhev taking down its PHP 12 Million GTD Main Event. Blazhev overcame a strong field of 344 entries that came across two starting flights. The total field generated a guarantee-smashing prize pool of PHP 22,523,400, which was shared by top 43 players. The lion’s share of the prizepool went to Blazhev who won the coveted title for PHP 4,812,000 (~INR 68 Lac) in top prize after outlasting Korea’s Kunwoo Kim in heads-up.
The final table of the event began today at 1PM with Australia’s Christos Vlaho leading the way. The first casualty was Jongjun Park who failed to overcome Rosario’s pocket Jacks. From Team India, Vikaash Shah was the lone warrior on the table and his run ended in 8th place for PHP 613,000 (~INR 8.6 Lac). Shah ran his pocket jacks into Ad Ah of Dimitar Blazhev who hit a set to win the pot.
Following Shah was Ryo Naito who finished in the 7th place. The six-handed play saw 28 hands before the next elimination. Christos Vlahos who had lost several pots finally shoved his 705k stack with 2s 2c and was called by Del Rosario who held As Qh and won the hand on a A-K-K-J-9 run-out to bust Vlahos in 6th place. Exiting in 5th place was none other than Rosario whose AQ lost to A2 of David Erquiaga who rivered a flush. Erquiaga, however, did not last longer and went out in 4th place.
Three-handed play lasted for about an hour before Mark Dela Cruz exited in 3rd place, leaving Kunwoo Kim and Dimitar Blazhev. While Kim began slightly ahead with 5,370,000 chips to Blazhev’s 4,950,000, Blazhev was eventually able to get ahead and seal the win. The last hand saw Blazhav with Ac 9d and Kim with Kd Jc. The board ran 7s Qs 3s Qc 7d, giving the pot as well as the title to Blazhev.
Final Table Payouts (PHP):
- Dimitar Blazhev – PHP 4,812,000
- Kunwoo Kim – PHP 3,372,000
- Mark Dela Cruz – PHP 2,168,000
- David Erquiaga – PHP 1,397,000
- Rogel Del Rosario – PHP 1,077,000
- Christos Vlahos – PHP 891,000
- Ryo Naito – PHP 748,000
- Vikaash Shah – PHP 613,400
- Jongjun Park – PHP 481,000