After coming into the final table action, James Romero didn’t let much slow him down as he rode his chip lead to his first major championship, the World Poker Tour Five Diamond World Poker Classic in Las Vegas Saturday night.
Romero had a dominant lead to start the action on Saturday afternoon. With 9.855 million in chips, his closest competitor, Ryan Tosoc (4.46 million), was behind by more than a 2:1 deficit. Nearly three times behind Romero was Justin Bonomo (3.385 million) while Igor Yaroshevskyy (2.565 million), Alex Condon (2.26 million) and Jake Schindler (1.205 million) all had a tough road to hoe if they were going to climb into contention. Thus, everyone in the WPT arena at the Bellagio thought that it was Romero’s tournament to lose, usually the kiss of death to most players.
Perhaps because of the stakes they were playing for (sixth place earned $258,545; the champion took down $1,938,118) or perhaps because of their deep stacks (even the short-stacked Schindler had 24 big blinds to work with), the early action was a bit tepid. On Hand 17, Tosoc would take down a 2.7 million chip hand against Bonomo, his Big Slick flopping two pair, to firm up his hold on second place at the table, but other than that the six men were content to shuffle chips around the felt. On Hand 25, Romero and Bonomo clashed and, after a flop bet on a K-6-3 rainbow, Bonomo mucked his cards to send Romero over the 12 million mark in chips.
It wasn’t until Hand 59 that the first player was eliminated. After Yaroshevskyy moved all in for almost 1.5 million chips, everyone looked to the table captain, Romero, to look him up. Romero did, but it also helped that he had the goods to go to battle; his pocket Queens were in very good shape against Yaroshevskyy’s A-10 off suit and, when the board ran out nine-high, Romero was the “executioner” of the first elimination in the sixth place Yaroshevskyy.
Only two hands later, another soldier fell. Schindler pushed out an opening bet from the cutoff and Bonomo not only wanted to see the flop with him but wanted to play for all his chips out of the small blind. Schindler decided to play along and was in dominant shape with his pocket sevens over Bonomo’s pocket fives. A seven on the flop all but sealed the hand and, after the turn card didn’t have a five on it, Bonomo was drawing dead and out of the tournament in fifth place.
The floodgates continued to spew out players as, only two more hands after Bonomo’s departure, another player would hit the exits. Condon never seemed to get anything going throughout the day and, when he tried to make a move, it would prove to not be the opportune moment. Moving all in from the button, Condon saw the chip leader Romero make the call and turn up pocket fives. Condon was on a move with his Q♣ 9♣, but he was alive and actually improved on the K-J-8 flop. An Ace continued to tease Condon – but Romero was still in the lead – and, after the board completed with an innocuous seven, Condon’s straight dream was dead. He shipped his chips to Romero and exited to the darkness surrounding the WPT final table in fourth place.
Now down to three players, Romero still had a sizeable lead with his 11.435 million in chips, but both Tosoc (7.14 million) and even Schindler (5.155 million) could take a massive chomp out of his chip stack if he made the slightest mistake. Romero didn’t make that mistake, however, instead lengthening his lead over the next 20 hands to the point that his chip stack was larger than the chip stacks of Tosoc and Schindler added together. It would take another 37 hands before Romero vanquished Schindler in third place but, when his K-J nailed a King on the flop against Schindler’s pocket sixes to knock him out in third, it was pretty much a foregone conclusion that Romero (20.95 million chips) was going to win the heads up against Tosoc (2.775 million) to win the title.
Tosoc didn’t go quietly, fighting back over 16 hands, but it was too much in the end. After Tosoc moved all in from the button, Romero immediately made the call and slapped pocket Kings on the table. Tosoc could only shake his head as he tabled his pocket fives and, once the A-J-9-4-6 board rolled off, the championship was Romero’s.
1. James Romero, $1,938,118
2. Ryan Tosoc, $1,124,051
3. Jake Schindler, $738,579
4. Alex Condon, $494,889
5. Justin Bonomo, $345,272
6. Igor Yaroshevskyy, $268,545
