After nearly three and a half hours of grueling and exciting heads-up play, John “The Razor” Phan was able to overcome Amit Makhija for the World Poker Tour’s Legends of Poker title. The poker pro, Phan, was awarded $1,116,428 and the WPT winner’s braclet. Online poker prodigy, Makhija, walked away with a second place prize of $563,320. WPT commentator Mike Sexton called it the “greatest heads-up match in WPT history.”
This year, 373 players entered into the WPT Legends of Poker Main Event for their share of the $3,545,738 prize pool. Among those 373 were names like Phil Ivey, Daniel Negreanu, Barry Greenstein, Layne Flack, Matt Keikoan, Maria Ho, and Allen Cunningham, but only six made it to the final table.
Here are the results of the final table:
1. John Phan – $1,116,428
2. Amit Makhija – $563,320
3. Zach Clark – $281,645
4. Paul Smith – $246,450
5. Trong Nguyen – $211,245
6. Kyle Wilson – $176,035
This was Phan’s third WPT final table and he didn’t hesitate to show his excitement about his win. When asked about his victory he said, “I’m so happy. This is a dream come true for me. I’m so excited. I don’t know what to say.”
One of the noteworthy hands of the night was when Phan took the lead, calling his A-K against Makhija’s deuces. Phan caught a king on the river, giving him a 4 to 1 chip lead over Makhija. After Makhija worked to even out his stack, only to have it cripped again, he shoved all-in with K-7 of diamonds against Phan’s pocket three’s. With Q-A-5-5-10 on the board, this proved to be the decisive hand and Makhija was sent home.