Artur Papazyan Wins WSOP Circuit Commerce Main Event
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Artur Papazyan won the World Series of Poker Circuit main event hosted at Commerce Casino in Southern California on May 20 to rack up a score of $341,830. This victory grew his career earnings to nearly $1.8 million.
"That was the first time in my poker career I've had a big stack like that. In my previous tournaments, I was always the middle stack, and I guess I can say for the first time in my poker career, I was a big stack, and it was fun. I don't have too much experience with it, but I think I did pretty well. I was just using my poker knowledge. I haven't studied poker tournaments, but I was putting to use my breadth of knowledge in poker," Papazyan told Poker.Org reporters on the scene.
The two-time World Poker Tour champion from Los Angeles now has a gold ring to add to his trophy collection after topping a talented field and final table in his own backyard. This was his third-largest score yet, trailing only his pair of WPT triumphs. He earned $668,692 as the champion of the 2017 WPT Legends of Poker main event, and $389,404 as the last player standing in the 2017 WPT Maryland Live main event.
The $1,700 buy-in no-limit hold’em poker tournament was part of a big lineup of events at Commerce that also included the WSOP Tournament of Champions Invitational that was won by Kevin Li for the first gold bracelet of the summer back on May 17. The gold ring main event saw 1,554 runners build the total prize pool up to $2,354,310, easily surpassing the $2 million guarantee. The top 187 players all cashed for at least $3,465.
Players lost along the way to the final nine included Zak VanKueren (16th), Royce Cohen (15th), Anastasia Knapp (14th), Daniel Vargas (13th), Alex Anton (12th), Sami Bechahed (11th), and Elvyn Bello (10th).
Papazyan held the chip lead when cards got into the air at the final table, and he expanded his advantage by eliminating Paul Hizer in ninth place. Yen Dang was out next in eighth place, and a series of double-ups transpired before David Avina hit the rail in seventh.
Papazyan then took out one of the most famous personalities in poker when he busted Phil Laak in sixth place with a set-over-set situation seeing pocket eights top pocket deuces after the money went all in preflop between them. Rising tournament star Noel Rodriguez busted next in fifth place.
A series of double ups took hold once more before the battle for fourth place was decided when Nick Shkolnik hit the rail in fourth place. Papaazyan then sent another talented Southern California poker player Adam Swan to the rail in third to take 35.3 million into the final match against the 28.75 million held by Luis Concha.
The first all-in hand between them saw Concha score a needed double-up after his chips got low to start the match, but he was soon all-in and at risk again. The final hand saw Concha limp on the button to start the action. Papazyan raised to 2.6 million, Concha reraised to 7 million, and Papazyan four-bet shoved. That put Concha on a decision for his tournament life, and he called off his last 29.25 million.
Concha was in a good spot with pocket tens ahead of the pocket fours held by Papazyan, but the final board of the tournament came down Q♠6♠6♦4♥7♠ to give Papazyan the full house and the tournament victory. Concha took home $232,038 for the runner-up finish, which grew his career earnings close to half a million dollars.
"I can't believe how lucky I got with the four, I thought I was toast there. You know, realistically, that hand was worth (over $100,000), if I lose that, I have crumbs, that's probably one of the biggest pots I've played in terms of dollar value," said Papazyan after coming from behind to win the final hand.
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