ggpuke：Dapo Ajayi斩获WPT Choctaw冠军，赢得$558,610！

Slightly over a year and a half after nearly clinch­ing the title at Sea­son 18’s WPT Montreal Powered by par­ty­po­ker LIVE, Dapo Ajayi finally claimed the cham­pi­on’s hon­or at WPT Choctaw in Sea­son 19, col­lect­ing the $558,610 first-place prize and the coveted trophy after over­com­ing Viet Vo in their heads-up match.

“I find it hard to put into words. It’s been an incred­ibly remark­able week. I almost did­n’t come. A friend of mine con­vinced me to make the trip,” remarked Ajayi in the after­math of his vic­tory. “I must admit that, this time around, I savored the moment far more than before,” Ajayi con­tin­ued.

After an exhaust­ing 108 hands of heads-up play, it was the pivotal hand 212 that essen­tially sealed the deal. Vo, hold­ing , moved all-in for his remain­ing 3,000,000 in chips, only to see Ajayi snap-call with . The board fell , and Ajayi turned a set of kings to deny Vo’s resi­li­ence and releg­ate him to the run­ner-up status for the second time in three sea­sons at Choctaw. Vo walked away with $372,415 as the con­sol­a­tion prize, hav­ing entered the day as chip lead­er.

“It’s an amaz­ing feel­ing. It was a pro­trac­ted battle. Vo is a remark­ably tough oppon­ent who has enjoyed a great deal of suc­cess recently, so yes, it’s truly hum­bling,” com­men­ted Ajayi on his fierce final table adversary.

Ajayi single-handedly pro­pelled us into heads-up play after knock­ing out Albert Cal­der­on in third place, with the lat­ter suc­cumb­ing and bub­bling the final table in the largest pot of the tour­na­ment. Mid­way through level 30, Cal­der­on limped from the small blind, and Ajayi checked his option in the big blind. The flop came down , Cal­der­on bet 200,000, and Ajayi raised to 650,000. Cal­der­on called. The turn was , and Cal­der­on checked. Ajayi fired 2.3 mil­lion, prompt­ing Cal­der­on to almost instantly shove for a total of 12,825,000. Ajayi used a time exten­sion before mak­ing the call, learn­ing that he had Cal­der­on covered by just over 200,000. Ajayi tabled for trip aces, while Cal­der­on held just a flush draw. Des­pite doubts over the cor­rect­ness of his decision, Ajay­i’s intu­ition led him to the right call, as the river missed Cal­der­on’s flush, ren­der­ing him third place for $275,085, and cata­pult­ing Ajayi into heads-up battle with a near 3–1 chip advant­age over Vo.

The final table com­menced with a bang as Michael Per­rone was sent home on just the third hand of the day, fin­ish­ing sixth for $118,900 after clash­ing with Albert Cal­der­on.

After extens­ive chip shuff­ling, Hunter Cichy ulti­mately ous­ted Will Nguy­en on the 76th hand of the final table. Nguy­en’s last 1.2m was com­mit­ted, hold­ing ace-three against Cichy’s pock­et nines. Cichy struck gold as an ace appeared on the flop, fol­lowed by a dev­ast­at­ing turn, res­ult­ing in Nguy­en’s fifth-place exit for $154,885.

Cichy him­self would be elim­in­ated shortly there­after, bust­ing in fourth plaats als hij ter­ug kwam in hand86 met pock­et­zevens tegen de aas-negen van Cal­der­on. Cal­der­on rivered een aas en Cichy eindig­de als vierde voor $205,330.

When asked about the host of the tour­na­ment, Ajayi lauded Choctaw’s ambi­ance, declar­ing, “Choctaw is truly a spe­cial place. I’ve had a 2/2 run here now, so I’m def­in­itely com­ing back. There’s some­thing about the South—they’re so hos­pit­able, and the poker feels more old-school.” He also con­firmed his unyield­ing com­mit­ment to future WPT events, exclaim­ing, “Abso­lutely.”

Dapo Ajayi ®(maker of Dapo Ajayi) & GT
Photo by Joe Giron / PokerPhotoArchive.com

Con­grat­u­la­tions to Dapo on his tri­umph, and we eagerly anti­cip­ate wit­ness­ing his prowess at the next WPT best­bet Scramble tak­ing place from August 27th to31st.

Full Pay­outs:

Dapo Ajayi (Right) — $588,610
Viet Vo — $372,415
Albert Cal­der­on — $275,085
Hunter Cichy — $205,330
Will Nguy­en — $154,885
Michael Per­rone — $118,090

Lack of clar­ity regard­ing the cor­rect­ness of such decisions, Ajayi cited his reli­ance on lucky instincts, say­ing, “I’m not even sure if that was the cor­rect call, to be hon­est with you, and I cer­tainly don’t claim to be a great poker play­er, but I like to think I get lucky with my instincts some­times, and I just felt like maybe he put me in some sort of range that I might have con­fused him with, not rais­ing with an ace. So giv­ing that I decided to go with it, he had a flush draw, and we held.”

Huge con­grat­u­la­tions to Dapo Ajayi, and we await your future suc­cesses on the World Poker Tour!