The second and final day of WPT Alpha8 (£100,000 buy-in) saw 11 players returning to their seats, and the number of participants increased to 12 after the late arrival of American businessman Bill Perkins who flew in from the U.S. to United Kingdom mainly for this event.
Perkins eventually busted in 10th place (Steven Silverman and Talal Shakerchi busted before), and he was followed to the rail later on by Fabian Quoss, Viktor Blom, Richard Yong, Max Altergott and Tony G, who bursted on the money bubble after losing an all in preflop with pocket sevens against Philipp Gruissem's pocket queens.
Philipp Gruissem, who brought the largest stack to Day 2, remained in front until he and Scott Seiver played heads-up for the title! Gruissem had 1.2 million chips to the 742k stack of Seiver when the "fight" kicked off. The two pros took turns at holding the lead until the final hand, which was played 14.75 hours after play began...
After some betting back and forth the two were all in preflop - Gruissem with A
J
and Seiver held KQ
. The board ran out 9J45
4 and Gruissem was crowned the champion as he had Seiver covered. Scott Seiver received £509,600 as a consultation while Philipp Gruissem, of Germany, received a massive first prize of £862,400 ($1,379,840)!
Here are the final table payouts:
1st - Philipp Gruissem - £862,400
2nd - Scott Seiver - £509,600
3rd - Tobias Reinkemeier - £352,800
4th - Igor Kurganov - £235,200
