Scott Stewart Wins WPT World Championship, $2.5 Million Reward

The World Poker Tournament World Championship (WPTWC) event was recently concluded, and during its $10,400 buy-in main event, it was Scott Stewart who was the last man standing.

Stewart becomes the latest member of the WPTWC Champions Club, winning the heads-up bout against Rob Sherwood and winning the $2,563,900 grand prize. Meanwhile, Sherwood secured $2,200,000 in his similarly impressive run.

Who Were the Final Participants in the WPT World Championship Final Table?

Stewart’s run in the final table was filled with highly capable and ready players. This included Christian Roberts, Ryan Yu, Chris Moorman, Eddie Pak, and Rob Sherwood.

Stewart’s run in the final table was filled with highly capable and ready players. This included Christian Roberts, Ryan Yu, Chris Moorman, Eddie Pak, and Rob Sherwood.

The final table action started strong, with strong hands from the players made for compelling poker face offs. Stewart had pocket Aces during one round, and he got in his chips preflop with the rockets against Christian Roberts and his ace-queen hand, who also had the shorter stack.

Roberts had a moment of light to beat Stewart’s aces after flopping a flush draw. However, Roberts couldn’t overcome the pocket rockets, and exited in sixth place for $665,000.

After Robert’s exit, it was Ryan Yu’s turn. Yu went for a three-bet with his pocket nines over an open. However, Yu’s hand ran into Edward Pak’s Big Slick. 

Pak’s ace-king flopped into a two pair, and improved into a full house on the turn. This left Yu drawing dead, and a 5th place finish. That said, Yu earned $875,000 and kicked off the seven-figure payouts.

Chris Moorman was next on the chopping block, but before his exit, he looked like he was going to survive. Moorman found himself in the middle of a three-bet pot on a J-J-7 flop against Eddie Pak after Moorman doubled up against Rob Sherwood. 

Moorman went all-in with queens, and was called by Pak, who had tens. A 10C presented itself on the turn, just as Pak was calling for it, and placed Pak in front. The river did Moorman no favors, and Moorman’s run ended in fourth place again, similar to his exit last year.

The Final Three

After Moorman’s exit, the final three players agreed to flatten the payouts. Originally, the first place winner was slated to pay $3,138,000, but the remaining players wanted to lower the variance. Instead of playing for more than $3.1 million, they reworked the payout table to award  $2,563,900 to the winner, $2.2 million to second place, and $2 million to third. 

Once the payouts were settled, Eddie Pak was the next player to exit. Pak defended his big blind to a raise from Stewart with his QD, 10D, and flopped a flush draw to Stewart’s pocket jacks. However, Pak’s queen-high flush was defeated by Stewart’s jacks-full hand; Pak settled for third place and a $2,000,000 prize.

The final table’s last two players were Rob Sherwood and Scott Stewart. Chants of “U-S-A! U-S-A!” was heard throughout the Wynn convention center, as the American Stewart was set to do battle against the Englishman Sherwood. When the heads-up TV prep had been finished, the crowd tweaked their chant to STU-S-A! STU-S-A!

The Heads-up play began with Stewart holding a slightly-better-than 2-1 chip advantage, which he would extend to nearly 7-1 at one point. Stewart appeared to be on the verge of finishing off the tournament when he moved all in with queens against ace-jack, but an ace on the flop kept Sherwood alive.

It took nearly 100 hands between the two competitors, where Stewart struggled and, at one point was surveying whether Sherwood was playing his hands perfectly and continued to chip up and before long had nearly caught up to his opponent.

After more than five hours of a grueling heads-up battle, Stewart finally went all-in with pocket kings against Sherwood’s pocket 6’s, which Stewart won. That left Sherwood with crumbs, and he’d be eliminated in second place two hands later.