Dapo Ajayi Wins WPT Choctaw For a Career-Best $558,610

Dapo Ajayi
  • Profile picture
  • Namita Ghosh July 30, 2021
  • 2 Minutes Read

Part of Season XIX of the World Poker Tour (WPT), WPT Choctaw was hosted at the Choctaw Casino and Resort from July 15 to 27. The series powered down to an electrifying finale with Dapo Ajayi (cover image) overcoming the 964-entry field in the $3,700 entry buy-in Main Event to win a career-best $558,610.

Ajayi’s win eclipses the previous best C$335,000 ($254,996) he had won from his second-place finish in the 2019 WPT Montreal C$3,300 MainEvent.

Speaking to reporters on how he felt after the win, an elated Ajayi said, “It’s difficult to articulate. It’s been a really interesting week. I almost didn’t come. There was a friend of mine that convinced me to come down. I will say, this time, I appreciated the moment more than in past times, and I was able to kind of savor it.”

Talking about his heads-up clash against Viet Vo, Ajayi added, “It feels great. It was a long battle. Vo is a really tough player, he has had a lot of success recently, so yea, it’s humbling.”

The Main Event registered a prize pool of $3,272,780, and 122 places got paid.

The event attracted several established pros and some notables who finished in the money included Terry Presley (7th for $91,010), DJ Alexander (12th for $44,500), James Mackey (16th for $29,215), Seneca Easley (28th for $16,950), Adam Hendrix (32nd for $16,950), Phil Mader (35th for $14,475), Bryan Campanello (41st for $12,510), Brian Altman (48th for $12,510), Farid Jattin (51st for $10,950), and Josh Reichard (59th for $9,700).

Final Table Chip Counts

  1. Viet Vo – 9,750,000 (98 BBs)
  2. Albert Calderon – 8,425,000 (84 BBs)
  3. Dapo Ajayi – 8,075,000 (81 BBs)
  4. Will Nguyen – 6,225,000 (62 BBs)
  5. Hunter Cichy – 4,200,000 (42 BBs)
  6. Michael Perrone – 2,225,000 (22 BBs)

 

Final Table Recap

Michael Perrone was eliminated relatively early by Albert Calderon in sixth place.

By the 18th hand of the final table play, Dapo Ajayi had spun past the rest of his opponents to claim the chip lead.

It took an agonizing two hours for the next elimination. Will Nguyen found his run cut short in fifth place after his flopped pair of aces were bested by Hunter Cichy’s flopped set of nines.

Hunter Cichy fell shortly after that. His pocket sevens were cracked by Albert Calderon’s rivered pair of aces.

Calderon continued an upward climb before his dream run abruptly ended in third place. In what was till then the biggest post of the tournament, Ajayi’s ace-deuce dominated Calderon’s queen-five, setting the heads-up play in motion.

Ajayi held an almost 3:1 chip lead over Viet Vo with 142 big blinds as against Vo’s 51 bigs. Vo started catching up right away, and the duo played 108 hands before Ajay came out on top. Ajayi’s cowboys were already ahead of Vo’s ace-three on the last hand of the tournament, and the former clipped a set on the rundown to win the title.

Dapo Ajayi
Dapo Ajayi

 

Final Table Results (USD)

  1. Dapo Ajayi – $558,610
  2. Viet Vo – $372,415
  3. Albert Calderon – $275,085
  4. Hunter Cichy – $205,330
  5. Will Nguyen – $154,885
  6. Michael Perrone – $118,090

Content & Images Courtesy: WPT & PokerNews.com

0 0 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of
0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

Top Online Poker Rooms

Top
PokerGuru