WPT Online Championship won by Christian Jeppsson for $923,786

Christian-Jeppson-wpt-online

Christian-Jeppson-wpt-onlineAfter an action-packed final day’s play, Swedish player Christian Jeppsson has become the latest name to be added to the legendary World Poker tour Main Event trophy after winning the inaugural WPT Online Championship.

Going into the final day, Jeppsson had a small lead over the Canadian poker sensation, Sam Greenwood. With Pascal Hartmann chasing hard in 3rd position and Alexander Clark a mere big bet behind, it was anyone’s title:

Place Player Country Chips
1st Christian Jeppsson Sweden 17,573,926
2nd Sam Greenwood Canada 16,087,766
3rd Pascal Hartmann Austria 14,884,499
4th Alexander Clark United Kingdom 14,407,969
5th Viktor Ustimov Russia 9,138,972
6th Jukka Koskela Finland 5,700,975
7th Nikolay Ponomarev United Kingdom 5,132,492
8th Pascal Teekens Netherlands 2,215,627

With 2,130 entries overall, the early pace-setter as the final eight kicked off the final table action was the eventual runner-up Viktor Ustimov from Russia. Doubling up through Sam Greenwood as Greenwood’s ace-king couldn’t catch Ustimov’s pocket queens, the Russian went on a tear up the leaderboard.

It was Pascal Teekens from Holland who was the first player to leave the table, moving all-in with ace-queen only to run into the pocket aces of Ustinov, the seemingly unstoppable force running riot in the early stages.

Sam Greenwood had started the day behind only the chip leader and will be disappointed to have been eliminated in 7th place. Greenwood’s eventual demise was for mere scraps, just two big blinds being digitally slid into the middle and whipped away like pocket change by Ustinov.

With six players remaining, Ustimov and Jeppsson shared over half of the 85 million chips in play, and they were in no mood to throw away a heads-up berth. Pascal Hartmann made a run for the chip lead when he moved all-in with pocket jacks, but Jeppsson snapped him off with ace-queen and hit to eliminate the Austrian.

Alexander Clark felt like it was his time with ace-queen, moving all-in only to be called by Ustimov with ace-five and hit a five on the flop. Both big stacks had made even more profit from their shorter-stacked rivals, and when Ustimov busted Nikolay Ponomarev in 4th place and Jukka Koskela in 3rd place, heads-up could kick off. While Jeppsson had a slight lead, it only took a few hands to lead to talk of a deal and the two men smoothed out the pay-jump between being runner-up and winner considerably.

Ustimov leaped into a lead post-deal, but it didn’t last, and Jeppsson was well ahead when he called Ustimov’s raise and headed to a flop of queen-five-six with two diamonds. Again Jeppsson check-called, but on the seven of diamonds turn, with just under 5 million in the pot, Ustimov bet 5 million and saw Jeppsson check-raise all-in for 64 million, easily covering the 10 million Ustimov had behind.

Ustimov called it off and had pocket kings, but Jeppsson had jack-nine of diamonds and it was all over before the inconsequential two of hearts ended the event in Jeppsson’s favour.

WPT Online Championship Main Event final table results:

Place Player Country Payout
1st Christian Jeppsson Sweden $923,786*
2nd Viktor Ustimov Russia $865,542*
3rd Jukka Koskela Finland $477,333
4th Nikolay Ponomarev United Kingdom $317,583
5th Alexander Clark United Kingdom $221,733
6th Pascal Hartmann Austria $151,443
7th Sam Greenwood Canada $103,838
8th Pascal Teekens Netherlands $66,776

You can watch the entire final table session with commentary from James Dempsey on partypoker’s Twitch replay right here.