After almost a year-long delay, the World Poker Tour Borgata Poker Open finally took place, and Veerab Zakarian managed to top the final table, earning a total of $674,840 for his effort.
The original tournament was supposed to take place on April 1, 2020. However, the pandemic then befell the planet, and lockdowns were in order around the globe, including in the US and Canada. The real money poker competition was then postponed only to take place more than a year later. The final six players gathered on Sunday at PokerGo Studio in Las Vegas in order to determine the winner. WPT Borgata Winter Poker Open saw a total of 1,290 entries apply for it.
Veerab Zakarian started his final table run as the chip leader and managed to keep it that way until the very end. The 25-year-old player from Toronto has had an opportunity to see his name etched on the Mike Sexton WPT Champions trophy, and he didn’t hide his excitement about it.
He said that he hadn’t known what to expect since he had been waiting for a very long time for the tournament to end. He added that the majority of people hadn’t had anything to look forward to after the pandemic, but he was not one of them. Zakarian said that it looked like everyone was chasing a WPT title — even more than a WSOP bracelet — since there were so many bracelet winners, making WPT special.
Before making this win, Zakarian had a total of $496,610 in lifetime poker earnings, as stated on the Zakarian Hendon Mob page. His previous best prize was $63,340, which he managed to snatch after topping the 2019 Mid-States Poker Tour Seneca Niagara Main Event.
The Final Table Overview
The final table consisted of six players, and the first one to hit the rail was Andrew Hanna, who managed to win a total of $143,264. After that, it was time for Bin Weng to say goodbye to the felt, winning $187,900 as the fifth-placed player. The fourth place was reserved for Nathan Russler, who snatched $238,913 as his prize.
Brian Altman was one of the most determined players to win a WPT title. He won the Season XVIII Hublot WPT Player of the Year recently and was one of the favorites for winning this tournament as well. Unfortunately, he had to settle for third place and the prize of $333,012.
The last player that Veerab Zakarian had to face was James Anderson. Anderson had previous experience playing the very same tournament, and he even finished runner-up in Season XI in 2013. Unfortunately, in the end, he repeated the same thing in the 2021 edition as he lost to Zakarian and had to settle for the consolation prize of $449,904.
Both Zakarian and Anderson had a similar chip count at the start of the heads-up play, and they took more than 80 hands to wrap things up. Both players had a chance to hold a chip lead during that time, but Anderson eventually gambled his lead and lost in the duel.