Harry Arutyunyan Wins 2014 World Poker Tour Legends of Poker, Defeats Mike Eskandari in Lengthy Heads-up Match to Take Home $576,369

World Poker Tour‘s televised Legends of Poker, Season XIII got off to a thumping start at the Bicycle Casino in California, last week.

Harut “Harry” Arutyunyan (cover image) of Armenia sledged through a player field of 593, for 5 days and finally beat, home-favorite Mike Eskandari, in a swinging heads-up match that lasted for 90 hands.

For his achievement, Harry, a first time WPT winner, gets his name engraved on the coveted Champion Cup, along with those of the past 12 seasons.

Harry also wins the $576,369 prize, which includes a $15,400 ticket to the WPT World Championship at Borgata Casino in Atlantic City. Besides this Harry also gets:

– Monster 24K headphones
– Hublot King Power Unico Watch
– Bicycle Casino’s Wild Bill Hickok trophy
– WPT Champions Trophy

The event had a prize pool of $2,172,999 and chip leader at the start of the day, Mike Eskandari, got the next best win of $330,110, for his 2^nd place.

The final day began at 4pm local time and the final 6 players took to the table under the blue visage of the WPT banners.

It took 43 hands for the first elimination and chip leader Eskandari, ousted three-time WPT final tablist Jeremy Kottler, who went out at 6^th place.

Another 23 hands later, a huge three-way all-in, gave forth a double knockout. Tyler Cornell and Taylor McFarland, both hoping to get lucky ran into Harry’s . The board gave out and Tyler and McFarland hit the rails at 5^th and 4^th places respectively.

Another Tyler fell prey to Eskandari on the 104^th hand, when he moved all-in with his , up against the latter’s . An unsympathetic board dished out and Tyler Kenny exited at 3^rd place.

The table now had a chip-rich Eskandari, who held a 4-to-1 advantage against Harry, who nevertheless trudged through a grinding 90 hands to overcome the deficit.

The lengthy and well-fought heads-up final play saw both adversaries exchanging chip leads, until the last hand.

Harry raised to 1.2 million, when the blinds and antes were at the 250,000/500,000/50,000 level. Eskandari, with his moved all in for 7,850,000 and Harry with called. Eskandari’s hopes were dashed when the board ran out and he had to settle for 2^nd place with $330,000.

2014 WPT Legends of Poker Final Table Results

WPT will return next week with the WPT Merit Classic North Cyprus, starting on September 5.