PocketFivers shined in the World Poker Tour’s Legends of Poker event. Amit Amak316 Makhija and Zachary CrazyZachary Clark both made the final table of the prestigious WPT event and finished second and third, respectively. Makhija was the chip leader entering final table play and dueled against poker pro John “The Razor” Phan in what WPT Host Mike Sexton dubbed “The greatest heads-up match in WPT history.” Makhija pocketed $563,320 for his efforts; Clark took home a healthy $281,645. The tournament’s winner, Phan, banked $1.1 million. The entire Legends of Poker tournament was tracked on PocketFivesLive.com, your home for WPT coverage.
Entering heads up play, Makhija held 6,440,000 chips, while Phan started with 4,760,000. Phan doubled up, taking a 4:1 chip lead, with A-K against Makhija’s pocket twos by spiking a king on the river in a coin flip that would have won the tournament for Amak316. Miraculously, Makhija battled all the way back to get even in chips (5,445,000 to 5,755,000), doubling at one point with A-6 against Phan’s Q-9.
However, Makhija’s stack took a big hit with 8-5 on a board of J-3-2-5-J. Phan flipped over Q-J for three jacks, which sent Makhija’s chip stack tumbling to 1,565,000, but Amak316 successfully built his stack all the way back up to 3,470,000. On the final hand, he shoved for two million chips with K-7 of diamonds and was called by Phan, who held pocket threes. The board ran out Q-5-5-A-10 and Phan became the WPT’s newest Legends of Poker winner.
PocketFivesLive.com Tournament Reporter Court Harrington, who has been on-hand at The Bicycle Casino in Los Angeles for the entire event, commented, “After a long heads-up battle, the cards ended up falling the wrong way for Amit. He was very close to having the title wrapped up; he had to be able to taste it. He played excellent poker, showed that his end game is one to be emulated, and was just a turn of fate away from winning the title.”
The Legends of Poker tournament will be Makhija’s second televised appearance in recent months. He took fifth in the $10,000 buy-in World Championship of Pot-Limit Hold’em in the 2008 World Series of Poker, taking home $198,528. That tournament was shown on ESPN a few weeks ago and was won by Nenad Medic. Makhija navigated a tough final table that included Mike Sexton, Andy Bloch, Kathy Liebert, Phil Laak, and Patrik Antonius.
Clark was eliminated on the 93rd hand of final table play. With blinds of 50,000-100,000 with a 15,000 chip ante, he pushed all in for 1.8 million chips with K-2 and was called by Makhija, who held A-6. The turn was an ace, sealing Clark’s exit. Harrington talked about Clark’s Legends of Poker run: “Zach had a great tournament from start to finish. He was solid all the way through and was more than deserving of his spot in the final table.”
Clark is best known online for his massive win in the Full Tilt Online Poker Series V Main Event for $395,900. Despite traveling to L.A. and playing in the Legends of Poker, Clark found time to bank over $101,000 in tournaments that are tracked for the PocketFives.com Rankings during the month of August. Much of those earnings came by virtue of finishing fifth in the PokerStars Sunday Million on August 3rd for $59,017.
High-stakes online cash game player Kyle krisqueen Wilson was eliminated in sixth place, the first casualty of the final table. He held pocket kings, but ran into Clark’s A-J. An ace hit the flop, sending Wilson out of the Legends of Poker $176,035 richer. Harrington added, “Kyle's final table experience showed the nasty side of poker. He played great poker for most of a week, only to get all his chips in with pocket kings and lose. He played excellently and put himself in a position to compete for the win. If Kyle starts to play tournaments regularly, you can expect to see him deep in a lot of events.”
Here were the final results from last night:
1st Place: John Phan, $1,116,428
2nd Place: Amit Makhija, $563,320
3rd Place: Zach Clark, $281,645
4th Place: Paul Smith, $246,450
5th Place: Trong Nguyen, $211,245
6th Place: Kyle Wilson, $176,035
Next up for PocketFivesLive.com is the World Series of Poker Europe Main Event, which kicks off from London Clubs International in Leicester Square on Saturday, September 27th. Last year, Annette Annette_15 Obrestad won over $2 million for taking down the Main Event.
If you’re planning on playing in the WSOP Europe Main Event, click here to register for coverage on PocketFivesLive.com. We’ll report your progress free of charge so that your friends and family back home can see how you’re doing.
Congratulations to Amit Amak316 Makhija and Zachary CrazyZachary Clark on reaching the WPT Legends of Poker final table. Relive all of the action on PocketFivesLive.com, your source for WPT coverage. So long from Los Angeles!
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