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On the final episode of its second season, the WORLD POKER
TOUR (WPT) awarded $2,728,356 to Martin Deknijff of
Stockholm, Sweden, the winner of its WPT Championship
tournament at Bellagio in Las Vegas. The total was the
largest prize ever paid to a single individual place
finisher in a televised poker tournament or North American
sporting event. Deknijff outlasted 342 poker players in a
tournament that will air on The Travel Channel on June 30.
"This is a dream come true. To win the World Poker Tour
Championship and the biggest tournament ever in poker...it
is just overwhelming," said the 32-year-old Deknijff, who
stated his first post-tournament act would be to wake up his
seven-year-old son Robin and tell him the news. Deknijff has
made his living combining sports betting, poker and
professional bridge since he graduated high school in
Sweden. He has recently moved to Las Vegas.
The top 50 players in the WPT Championship each earned a
share in the $8,342,000 prize pool, the most ever for a
poker tournament. The buy-in was $25,300, the largest poker
tournament entry fee to date.
Coming into the final table were Deknijff, who was the chip
leader; Matt Matros of Bronxville, NY; Richard Grijalva of
Las Vegas; Hassan Habib of Downey, CA; Russell Rosenblum of
Bethesda, MD and Steve Brecher of Reno, NV.
Poker pro Habib walked away with $1,372,223; Matt Matros, a
grad student at Sarah Lawrence College took home $706,903;
Grijalva claimed $457,408; Rosenblum won $332,660 and earned
Brecher $232,862.
The $2.7 million to the victor was more than double the
$1,011,886 prize money paid to the winner for the inaugural
World Poker Tour Championship, which aired last year on The
Travel Channel.
"We are truly excited about having hosted the
record-breaking 2004 World Poker Tour Championship and Five
Star World Poker Tour Classic at Bellagio," said Doug
Dalton, director of poker operations at Bellagio. "This was
another successful tournament and we look forward to hosting
additional WPT events in the near future, including the 2005
WPT Championship."
WPT Enterprises, Inc. is a media and entertainment company
principally engaged in a development, production and
marketing of gaming-themed televised programming, the
licensing and sale of branded products and the sale of
corporate sponsorships. |
