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Dan Sepiol gained the 2023 WPT World Championship Thursday and the $5.3m first prize. [Image: Flickr.com / World Poker Tour]
Joyful holidays, certainly
As 2023 involves a detailed, six individuals nonetheless had work to do earlier than the vacation break, every vying for the title on the 2023 WPT World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas. On Thursday, Dan Sepiol emerged victorious after a curler coaster heads-up match towards Georgios Sotiropoulos to assert the primary prize of $5,282,954.
willingness to make performs in massive moments”
At 29 years outdated, Sepiol has reside match cashes relationship again to 2017 and had properly over 1,000,000 {dollars} in earnings earlier than this week, however clearly this victory dwarfs something he had achieved earlier than. He had even thought-about quitting skilled poker a number of years in the past, however Jeremy Brown, Justin Brown, and Taylor Black took him underneath their wings and coached him up, constructing on his innate “willingness to make performs in massive moments,” as Black instructed WPT.com.
“….I’d say he’s earned it. He’s labored onerous. He’s additionally earned it not simply within the onerous work, but in addition within the swings. So yeah, I truthfully couldn’t be extra blissful for him,” Black added.
Jumped the gun
Sepiol entered heads-up play with an enormous chip lead over Sotiropoulos, 310.5 million to 72.6 million, a niche that solely grew wider over the primary hour. At one level, his lead ballooned to 10-to-1 and it seemed like a victory was inevitable.
However after a small double-up to rise up off the felt, Sotiropoulos doubled once more in an virtually miraculous hand. Holding Okay-2, Sepiol was trying good on the flop of A-Okay-8. Sotiropoulos solely had 5-7, however hit a runner-runner straight to get his stack as much as 115.9 million, which, whereas nonetheless lower than half of what Sepiol had, was now sufficient to be harmful.
The loopy factor in regards to the hand was that when the playing cards had been turned over, Sepiol misinterpret his opponent’s hand and really thought he gained. He went to his rail to have a good time when somebody identified that he had misplaced the hand. Sepiol clearly had a humorousness about it, laughing on the scenario, however inside, it might need thrown him for a little bit of a loop.
“Positively a risk,” he mentioned in his post-game interview. “I don’t know for positive, but it surely undoubtedly, what’s the phrase? The momentum undoubtedly modified after that.”
Forwards and backwards in just a few arms
The momentum most undoubtedly shifted. After the hand, the 2 gamers agreed upon a deal by which Sepiol was assured $4,682,954 and Sotiropoulos $4,167,246, leaving the remaining $600,000 to the winner. Inside two arms, Sotiropoulos had taken the lead.
However only a few arms after that, Sepiol yanked the momentum proper again, flopping two pair with a dominated J-2 towards J-Q to double-up and take an enormous lead. The match was over on the very subsequent hand.
All of the chips had been in pre-flop, Sotiropoulos with Okay-Q and Sepiol with Okay-3 (fits are of no consequence). The flop modified nothing, however the flip produced a 3 for Sepiol, Sotiropolous couldn’t discover a Queen on the river, and that was it.
Along with hundreds of thousands of {dollars}, Dan Sepiol additionally gained a $10,400 into subsequent yr’s WPT World Championship, the Wynn Championship trophy, and the WPT World Championship trophy designed by Daniel Arsham.
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