After a couple close calls, Demo Kiriopoulos finally nabbed his first major live tournament title on Monday, winning the World Poker Tour (WPT) Fallsview Poker Classic Main Event at the Fallsview Casino Resort in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada. It must have been especially sweet for Kiriopoulos, as Fallsview is right in the Torontonian’s backyard, just across Lake Ontario. For topping the 602-entry field – a record for this event – Kiriopoulos won CAD $517,424, or nearly USD $400,000.
As mentioned, our champion had come close a couple times to a major victory. The most recent was also in Canada, when he finished sixth at the partypoker MILLIONS in Montreal in April 2018, winning CAD $400,000 (USD $312,407). He also came oh so close to a World Series of Poker gold bracelet when he was the runner-up in the $1,500 6-Handed No-Limit Hold’em event in 2017, a finish good for about a quarter million bucks. All told, Demo Kiriopoulos has $1,361,505 in live tournament earnings, with this week’s being his largest cash.
Day 3 of the WPT Fallsview Poker Classic began not at the final table, but with 19 players remaining. Kiriopoulos had an uphill climb, beginning the day in 14th position with just 705,000 chips, less than one quarter of the stack of the chip leader. He stayed alive early and found the right spots to strike. Holding about 800,000 chips, he eliminated Mark Zajdner in 13th place when Zajdner moved all-in pre-flop with K-T and Kiriopoulos had Kings.
He did some more business later, again in an all-in pre-flop confrontation. Yuri Siniak was short with 390,000 and shoved with pocket Kings. Kiriopoulos called with T-9 of spades and proceeded to turn a spade flush to knock out his opponent in 10th place and elevate his own stack to about 2.2 million chips.
When the final table of six was determined, Kiriopolous was fourth place with 2.855 million chips, a far cry from the 9.475 of the chip leader, Andrew Pantling. On the second hand, Kiriopolous rose to 4.505 million and then, on Hand 33 of the final table, took a huge 5.9 million chip pot from Pantling to take the chip lead at 8.450 million.
He and Pantling exchanged the chip lead on several occasions the rest of the way, though Kiriopoulos took a serious dip for a while after Win Yeung doubled through him, dropping his stack below 4 million. He worked his way back, though, entering a dominating stretch which saw him eclipse the 16 million chip mark. Yeung eventually knocked out Pantling in third place and Kiriopoulos went into heads-up with a 16.265 million to 7.805 million chip lead over Yeung.
Kiriopoulos completely ran over Yeung from there, never even giving him a chance. On the final hand, Yeung moved all-in for 2.410 million with J-6 of diamonds and Kiriopoulos instantly called with pocket Tens. None of the board cards helped Yeung, while the champ made a set on the river to take the title.
World Poker Tour Fallsview Poker Classic Main Event – Final Table Results
1. Demo Kiriopoulos – CAD $517,424
2. Wing Yeung – CAD $362,853
3. Andrew Pantling – CAD $233,339
4. Jake Schwartz – CAD $167,388
5. James Morgan – CAD $128,471
6. Noeung Troeung – CAD $105,170
