Matthew Lapossie was mired deep in the middle of the pack to start the final table of the WPT Fallsview Poker Classic Main Event on Monday, but he quickly leapt into contention thanks to a spectacular hand and from there, Lapossie went on to win it all. For his efforts, he won CAD $363,197 (USD $326,866).
Going into the ten-handed final table, the chip counts were as so:
1. Jason James – 2,606,000
2. Ben Graham – 1,556,000
3. Spiro Mikrogianakis – 1,455,000
4. Peter Labib – 1,238,000
5. Josue Sauvageau – 1,234,000
6. Matthew Lapossie – 1,171,000
7. Dylan Wilkerson – 982,000
8. Howie Leung – 657,000
9. John Boulougouris – 255,000
10. Xiaohu Chen – 237,000
As you can well see, Lapossie was in a group of what looked like “also rans,” a quintent of players between about one and one and a half million chips, well behind Jason James and his tower of 2.6 million chips.
The two short stacks, John Boulougouris and Xiaohu Chen, were the first two players eliminated on Monday, but after a couple orbits, it was Lapossie’s time to make a move. Peter Labib raised to 70,000 pre-flop and Lapossie called. On the flop of 6♥-3♠-7♥, Lapossie checked, Labib bet 120,000, Lapossie check-raised to 285,000, and Labib called. The turn was the 8♥ and rather than checking again, Lapossie bet 285,000, to which Labib decided to move all-in for about 700,000. Lapossie made the quick call. Labib had to have been loving life when he saw this, as he turned over A♥-3♥ for the turned nut flush. To his horror, though, Lapossie revealed T♥-9♥, which gave him a straight flush. The river made no difference and Labib was eliminated in eighth place on a very unexpected hand.
That pot took Lapossie up to 2.61 million, close to the chip lead.
It looked like it would at least be somewhat smooth sailing from there, but just before the field was cut down to the official final table of six, Lapossie doubled-up Dylan Wilkerson to fall down under 900,000 chips. After Dave Graham was knocked out in seventh place, things got really wild for Lapossie. He doubled through Howie Leung on the first hand of the six-handed final table, then doubled-up Wilkerson again to fall to 300,000 chips, then doubled-up twice in three hands to get back over a million.
Things quieted down for a while after that as Lapossie slowly grew his chip stack. The tournament was narrowed to three-handed on an explosive three-way all-in hand in which Lapossie tripled up to take the chip lead. Wilkerson had shoved pre-flop with Q-T, Lapossie called with A-K, and Spiro Mikrogianakis also called with 6-6. Lapossie was able to spike a King on the river to knock Mikrogianakis out and grow his stack to 4.2 million.
After eliminating Jason James in third place, Lapossie went into heads-up against Wilkerson with a chip lead of 8.1 million to 3.18 million.
It didn’t take long for Lapossie to finish things off. On Hand 141 of the “official” final table, Wilkerson moved all-in for a bit over 2 million with 4-4 and Lapossie called with A-5. The flop produced an Ace and that was all she wrote as Matthew Lapossie won the WPT Fallsview Poker Classic Main Event.
2014 World Poker Tour Fallsview Poker Classic Main Event – Final Table Results
1. Matthew Lapossie – $342,266
2. Dylan Wilkerson – $228,806
3. Jason James – $147,090
4. Spiro Mikrogianakis – $108,956
5. Josue Sauvageau – $81,716
6. Howie Leung – $65,373
Thanks go out to wpt.com for hand histories and payout information
