Last week saw Ema Zajmovic become the first female to win an open-entry event on the WPT Main Tour, and this week Darren Elias joined a very small group of players with three WPT titles. When you add in the record-breaking field of players that turned up for the Season XV World Poker Tour Fallsview Poker Classic C$5,000 Main Event, it has truly been a history-making sweep through Canada for the WPT.
Elias was the last player standing in the WPT Fallsview Poker Classic C$5,000 Main Event, outlasting the rest of the field to put his name on the WPT Champions Cup for the record-tying third time. With his third title, Elias became the fifth player to earn that many, joining Gus Hansen, Carlos Mortensen, Anthony Zinno, and Chino Rheem.
“It was a good tournament,” Elias said in the all-too-familiar spot in the winner’s circle. “I got dealt a lot of good hands in this one, a lot of big preflop hands. I kept getting aces and kings, I got pretty lucky to win. It was smooth sailing most of the way.”
Here are the rest of the final table payouts:
1st: Darren Elias – C$449,484 ($335,436)*
2nd: David Eldridge – C$300,982 ($224,613)
3rd: Jean-Christophe Ferreira – C$193,583 ($144,465)
4th: Andrew Chen – C$143,199 ($106,865)
5th: Manig Loeser – C$107,399 ($80,149)
6th: Abdull Hassan – C$86,184 ($64,316)
*First-place prize includes a seat into the season-ending WPT Tournament of Champions.
Day 3 began with 22 players remaining for a shot to join the WPT Champions Club. That group included Elias, who was attempting to put his name on the WPT Champions Cup for a third time. Action got underway quickly with the elimination of Anthony Dalpra in 22nd place, and he was followed by David Cloutier in 21st. With his elimination, Cloutier fell short in his attempt to make a third WPT Fallsview final table.
Jonathan Jessop and Mark Zajdner were also eliminated in the first hour of play to set up the last two tables of the WPT Fallsview Main Event. It took one hour to lose eight players then another full 60-minute level to lose one more player. Canadian pro Marc-Olivier Carpentier-Perrault put his chips in the middle with the best hand, but his 
lost to the Andrew Chen’s rivered flush with the 
. Carpentier-Perrault’s elimination in 11th place set up the unofficial final table, with two-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner Kirsten Bicknell leading and trying to make it back-to-back female WPT champions.
Once at the unofficial final table, there were a handful of double ups, including David Eldridge cracking Bicknell’s 
with the 
. But it took more than 90 minutes to lose the next player, with Chrishan Sivasundaram the first to exit the unofficial final table. He was followed by Day 3 start-of-day chip leader Ronald Laplante in ninth place.
Buck Ramsay’s elimination in eighth place set up the WPT final table bubble, and Jean-Christophe Feirrera was in danger of missing his seat on the main stage. He was all in with the 
against Bicknell’s , but a seven on the flop bailed him out while dropping her to under two big blinds. Bicknell was eliminated on the next hand by Eldridge to propel him to the WPT final table with a huge chip lead, holding 5 million of the 14 million chips in play.
The six remaining players included three stacks of 10 big blinds or less. Abdull Hassan was the shortest and his exit came soon after dinner when his 
could not win a classic race against Jean-Christophe Ferreia’s 
. Eldridge continued his hot streak by sending out the next short stack, this time it was his 
holding against Manig Loeser’s 
. That hand knocked the Main Event down to four players and Eldridge held half of the chips in play.
Then Elias took control.
Andrew Chen made a valiant comeback attempt from less than 10 big blinds, but his night was cut short after Elias correctly called with ace-high against Chen’s river bet.
“I thought he had some kind of straight draw, three-five, or seven-eight,” Elias commented later. “Something where he had a lot of equity on the flop and then he missed and had to bet river. I thought I had the best hand and went with my instinct, and I was right.”
Chen hit the exit in fourth place, and Ferreia fell to Elias two hands later.
Elias began heads-up play with a small chip lead and it took only three hands to finish the deal. The final hand of the tournament saw Elias’ 
hold against the 
to defeat Eldridge and earn his third career WPT title.
This result also impacts the Hublot WPT Player of the Year race for Season XV; Elias now sits in second place behind Benjamin Zamani with only a handful of events remaining on the schedule.
“I’m going to play LA, but because of my wife being due, that will be the last one I play ’till Florida, I plan on playing Florida,” Elias said. “Maybe I can run down [Ben Zamani], but if not, I’ll get second again.”
Elias finished second to Anthony Zinno in the Hublot WPT Player of the Year race in Season XIII.
Elias picked up C$449,484 for his Season XV WPT Fallsview Poker Classic Main Event title, which includes a $15,000 entry into the season-ending WPT Tournament of Champions taking place April 7-9 at Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, FL. Elias will take home a WPT Champions trophy, the WPT Fallsview Poker Classic trophy, and his name on WPT Champions Cup will earn a second diamond by it to represent his third victory.
With that, it’s off to the City of Angels, as Season XV of the World Poker Tour rolls on with the WPT L.A. Poker Classic $10,000 Championship starting Saturday, February 25. Be sure to stay tuned to WPT.com for continued coverage of Season XV of the World Poker Tour.