David Coleman Wins WPT Alpha8 Trifecta III Event for $730,000

The PokerStake player David Coleman took down the third and final World Poker Tour Alpha8 Trifecta event on Thursday night as he bagged $730,300 and the biggest prize of his professional career after a stirring victory at the Wynn in Las Vegas. A field of 117 total entries were topped by the poker professional whose recent victories have cemented his reputation in the game as one of poker’s most difficult players to beat.

Winter Comes for Sean

Heading into Day 2, there were some very big names at the very top of the leaderboard as players filled up the seats in the third and final Alpha 8 Trifecta tournament. With each entry costing $25,000, only the very best players were in action, with David Coleman (2.97m) leading the field overnight.

In fact, Coleman’s lead was a big one, with almost a million between him and the chasing pack, with Moldovan player Pavel Pesuv (2.08m), Roman Hrabec (1.95m) and Anrew ‘Chewy’ Lichtenberger (1,745,000) all inside the top five players. The overnight counts saw Sean Winter make Day 2, but with only 545,000 chips and he turned out to bubble the event, just missing out on the money places.

Only 15 players would be paid and in the end, that meant Sean Winter was the ‘bubble boy’, just missing out on profit in 15^th place. Thereafter, the action moved fast and Coleman always looked either in control or in contention, never slipping out of the reckoning at the top of the leaderboard.

Chewy Gets Chewed Up

Down to the final eight players, there were early exits for Isaac Haxton (8^th for   $92,000) and Moldova’s Pavel Plesuv, who cashed for $118,000 in seventh place despite having a slight lead over Coleman when the eight-handed final table began. The Czech player Roman Hrabec soon joined them on the rail, cashing for $154,000 when he failed to push on from starting the final table fourth in chips.

John Pannucci (5^th for $200,000) busted next before one of the crown favorites, Andrew ‘Chewy’ Lichtenberger finished in fourth place for $265,000. Chewy’s event might well have ended better but one of the most popular players in any cardroom will still be pleased with his performance and the result, a fine return on his buy-in of $25,000.

From that moment David Coleman always looked in control and having come into the final table on 3,100,000 chips, soon had all of them. Martin Raus had been one of the shortest stacks in the final table line-up but ran it all the way to a third-place finish worth $355,000. His exit saw a classic heads-up match between U.S.A. and Russia play out, but Coleman never let it become any sort of edgy affair. Closing it out to earn $730,300 up top, it was Nikita Kuznetcov who won the runner-up prize of $480,000.

Coleman’s victory for the biggest chunk of the $2.8 million prizepool saw him elevate his winnings to over $6 million. Coleman also finished sixth for $97,200 in the first Trifecta event this series, making it a return of over $825,000 for an outlay of $75,000 against some of the toughest professional on the circuit. The sixth title of his live poker career, Coleman has won all of them in Las Vegas.

The Champion Hails ‘Pretty Smooth’ Journey to Title

“This is a stacked field with a lot of competition, so you’ve got to bring your ‘A game’.”

After the event, Coleman expressed relief and delight in equal measure at his huge achievement.

“I lost some pots early on, but it was pretty smooth overall,” he told the World Poker Tour. “I can’t complain. I had the chip lead pretty much the entire final table…so it was pretty smooth. This is a stacked field with a lot of competition, so you’ve got to bring your ‘A game’ and stay focused. Play as best as you can, try to limit the mistakes, and hopefully get lucky.”

As well as banking the $730,300 top prize, Coleman also won a $10,400 seat into the WPT World Championships at Wynn Las Vegas in December. The top eight players on the WPT Alpha8 Trifecta leaderboard, including Events #1 and #2 winners Brock Wilson and Daniel Sepiol, all bagged those free seats. Here’s how the final top eight lined up:

1. David Coleman – 29 points
2. Danny Sepiol – 28 points
3. Nikita Kuznetcov – 24 points
4. Brock Wilson – 16 points
5. Jonathan Cohen – 14 points
6. Seth Gottlieb – 14 points
7. Martin Raus – 12 points
8. Mikita Badziakouski – 12 points

“[It’s] amazing,” said Coleman, wrapping up the trio of Trifecta events. “Every time you win a poker tournament, it’s like a weight off your shoulders and it feels amazing. I’m so happy. [I have] no words.”