Last week, we witnessed a real poker festival that took place in the Bellagio poker room in Las Vegas for the first four days. However, the last day — the final table action — took place at the Hyper X Esports Arena at the Luxor Hotel & Casino, where Taylor Black managed to emerge on top and win a total of $1,241,430.
It was a really exciting final table at the WPT Five Diamond as Black lost a massive lead and then slowly built his way back to the trophy.
Black started this $10,400 buy-in real money poker event with a lot of chips — more than half of all chips in play. For the first couple of hours, he dominated the table, but then troubles started coming down his way.
Losing the Lead
When there were only four players left in the game, Black made a wrong step that cost him plenty of chips and dethroned him for the time being.
In one of the most critical hands, Gianluca Speranza opened to 400,00 with an Ace-King in his hand, and Black decided to put some pressure on him by moving all-in with Ace-Jack.
This was enough for Speranza to snap-call the last 4.2 million chips, putting everything at stake. The board didn’t change much, and Speranza turned out to be the player with the better hand, claiming plenty of chips and emerging as the new leader.
But Black would later reclaim all those chips — through Speranza, as it turns out. In other words, he reclaimed his position as the chip leader, but he didn’t make any sudden moves, keeping the lead all the way through to the trophy.
Other players, including Lorenzo Lavis, made him some traps to lure him into betting all-in. He nearly did on one occasion, except he didn’t and avoided all the possible unfortunate consequences of his actions.
The Final Table Overview
The final table consisted of six players, and the first one to hit the rail was David Kim, who managed to win a total of $261,235. Mohsin Charania followed Kim in fifth place for $342,645, and Lavis exited in fourth place for $454,590.
Speranza was the last player to leave the tournament before the heads-up between Shegal and Black could take place.
Shegal sent Speranza to the rail and set the stage for a duel against Black. The good news for Black was that he already had a 2-1 chip lead, and the two players resumed the contest after a short break, with Black having a strategic advantage.
On the last hand, Black decided to go all-in with A-K in his hand, and Shegal had A-8. The board gave Black another King, while Shegal failed to improve. That’s how Black ended up winning the tournament, while Shegal had to go for the consolation prize of $827,620.
The tournament attracted a total of 716 entrants.