LAS VEGAS, Nevada — One of the largest tournaments in poker history, the $10,400 buy-in WPT World Championship, came to its conclusion over the weekend here with Dan Sepiol finishing off Georgios Sotiropoulos to close it out for the $5,282,954 first-place prize via a heads-up ICM chop.
A World Poker Tour Champions Club spot and millions of dollars were at stake between the final six players from the 3,835 entrants who sought a piece of that juicy $40 million guaranteed prize pool and the Mike Sexton WPT Champions Cup trophy.
Sepiol was among the short stacks when final table play began. But the shorty pulled off the bluff of the tournament against the big stack, fellow American, Andrew Lichtenberger early in the day.
Not long after, the tournament completely shifted in Sepiol’s direction as he would win the biggest pot of the tournament and sent one of the most accomplished poker pros in history home.
The high-stakes poker legend was out in third place for $2,798,700, and Sepiol would begin heads-up play with a huge chip advantage over Sotiropoulos.
Sepiol, a Mid-States Poker Tour and World Series of Poker Circuit champion, appeared to be moments away from a career-defining win. Just two years ago, he won a social media contest to compete in a WPT home game at Steve Aoki’s house against Phil Ivey and Aoki, a WPT ambassador at the time.
Sepiol was among the short stacks when final table play began.
On Thursday, he was competing for life-changing money and the biggest score in WPT Main Tour history, surpassing Eliot Hudon, who took down this same event last year for $4.1 million.
No slouch
But the tournament win wasn’t a guarantee for Sepiol when heads-up play began despite being up 4-1 in chips. Sotiropoulos, a Greek poker star with nearly $4 million in live tournament results before the WPT World Championship, is no slouch and wouldn’t go away easily.
Following a lengthy break after Lichtenberger’s elimination to film some television interviews, the final two players returned to the felt to battle for the trophy and millions of dollars.
Sotiropoulos would give his heads-up opponent a battle, especially early on. But he wasn’t able to make up much ground for quite some time as he couldn’t seem to scoop a big pot. But after dropping back to around 10 big blinds, he’d win a 60/40 to double up. And then he’d double up a second-time moments later, and then again into the chip lead after being down 11-1 in chips at one point in the match.
Sepiol would regroup and get it all back before long. The tournament would inevitably end with Sotiropoulos going all in with K appearing on the turn. For the runner-up, he took home $4,167,246 as a consolation prize after the final two players agreed to an ICM chop earlier on a break.
Sepiol, on the other hand, earned $5,282,954 for dominating a tough final table. In doing so, he moved into fourth place on Indiana’s all-time live tournament earnings list, according to The Hendon Mob. He now has just over $6.6 million lifetime, less than $50,000 short of Mike Sexton, the longtime WPT announcer who passed away in 2020.
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