Season IV of the World Poker Tour was concluded last night at the Bellagio with the WPT World Championship. The tournament was won by Joe Bartholdi, a young poker pro from Las Vegas. Bartholdi took home the first prize of $3,760,165.
A record-breaking total of over 600 players entered into the WPT championship, one of the most expensive tournaments worldwide with a buy-in of $25,000. The total prize pool was more than $15 million.
The final table looked as follows:
# 1: Joe Bartholdi (San Diego) - $7.135M
# 2: Roland de Wolfe (England) - $1.86M
# 3: Men "The Master" Nguyen (Bell Gardens) - $1.490M
# 4: Claus Nielsen (Denmark) - $5.875M
# 5: James van Alstyne (Las Vegas) - $8.07M
# 6: Davidson Matthew (Canada) - $5.765M
Men Nguyen was the best known poker pro at the final table. Nguyen became CardPlayer's Player of the Year in 2005, after winning the award three times already in 1997, 2001 and 2003 respectively. However, Nguyen was severely short-stacked with only $1.5M in chips.
The chip leader, James van Alstyne, had more than five times as much chips as Men Nguyen with $8.07M.
Not surprisingly Nguyen was the first player to be eliminated after going all-in with a pair of Tens against Claus Nielsen's pocket Queens. Nguyen won a "consolation prize" of $292,915 for finishing sixth.
In poker everything is possible, and the next player to go was the initial chip-leader James van Alstyne from Las Vegas. Van Alstyne lost a big pot to Joe Bartholdi earlier, and now went all-in with his remaining chips. He got called again by his nemesis Bartholdi, who managed to beat Van Alstyne's Big Slick with JT. Van Alstyne won $439,375 for finishing fifth.
More than an hour later Danish Claus Nielsen's set of Queens lost to Bartholdi's Flush of Diamonds, who spiked his fifth Diamond on the river. Nielsen took home a respectable $659,120.
Another hour or so later it was Roland de Wolfe's time to say goodbye. The English player was eliminated by who else than Joe Bartholdi who held pocket Queens against de Wolfe's pair of Sixes. Finishing in third place, de Wolfe still got over $1 million dollar for his efforts.
The remaining two players at the table were young poker pro Joe Bartholdi and small business owner Davidson Matthew. Bartholdi held an almost 3 to 1 chip-lead over Matthew. Bartholdi qualified for the $25,000 buy-in WPT championship by investing $3,000 in a satellite tournament at the Bellagio. Matthew did even better: he qualified online for just $25!
Despite being the short-stack Matthew had no plans to give up easily. At some point during the heads-up finale he even managed to take over the chip-lead from Joe Bartholdi.
However in the end it was Bartholdi won the first prize of $3,760,165. Davidson Matthew had to content himself with "only" $1,903,950 after not making a flush draw against Bartholdi's pair of Nines. Joe Barholdi is the new World Poker Tour World Champion.