The 38-year-old poker pro from Coeur D'Alene, ID, United States was the last man standing in this event. This is his first-ever WPT title and his biggest score to date, the first-place prize of $1,631,468.
A total of 1,001 players entered the 2018 World Poker Tour Five Diamond World Poker Classic $10,400 NLHE Main Event, which has now been considered as the biggest field ever in a $10,000 buy-in event on WPT history. The player entries altogether generated a $9,709,700 prize pool. After five days of extreme poker action held at the Bellagio, it was Dylan ‘ImaLucSac' Linde who won the lion's share of the prize.
After winning the event he said, "Incredible... I'm stunned, I'm stunned. I was in for a lot of bullets in this tournament - I was in for five bullets - and all I wanted to do was get even. I was like, ‘OK, I need to get 24th place and then I make like 8K, that's great.' Then I got to there and it just felt like freerolling. I just was confident, I played my game - I mean, I'm still... I'm still in shock."
He explained his multiple $10k bullets fired in this event, "It was like a roller coaster. The first one or two, it was like, ‘Ehhh, OK.' And then when I busted bullet three, I was pretty sad and I kind of tilted. Then when I busted bullet four, I was just like, ‘Ya know? Whatever, this tournament is really good and I need to fire.' At that point, I've already passed my pain threshold so now it doesn't matter. I just try and it almost helped me to be in for five."
He continued, "Incredible! Besides having played a lot of poker for the past 10 or 11 years, I'm a gargantuan poker fan. I watch every single everything on PokerGO, I watch all broadcasts. Even weird cash games that have been televised, I consume it all. I love poker. To be there, to be here playing in the studio, it's incredible. It's just incredible. I watched the Super High Roller Bowl Cash Game this morning before I came to play."
Thanks to this victory, Linde's name is added to WPT's record books alongside players like Daniel Negreanu, Joe Hachem, Gus Hansen and Antonio Esfandiari as a champion of this event.
Linde began the final day of the event second in chips with only six players left, just behind chip leader Milos Skrbic of Serbia.
The heads-up battle saw Dylan Linde (22,375,000) versus Milos Skrbic (17,675,000). As the match went on, Linde managed to increase his stack steadily. When the final hand was on, Linde had over a 6-to-1 advantage.
Skrbic got a pair of 5
Linde got a pair of Jacks
The board revealed K-9-9-9-A, which declared Linde the winner for holding a higher full house.
Final Table Results
|
Place
|
Player
|
Country
|
Prize
|
|
1
|
Dylan Linde
|
United States
|
$1,631,468
|
|
2
|
Milos Skrbic
|
Serbia
|
$1,087,603
|
|
3
|
Andrew Lichtenberger
|
United States
|
$802,973
|
|
4
|
Ping Liu
|
United States
|
$599,147
|
|
5
|
Lisa Hamilton
|
United States
|
$451,880
|
|
6
|
Barry Hutter
|
United States
|
$344,529
|
Next on the list of the WPT Main Tour is the WPT Gardens Poker Championship with a $10,000 buy-in to be held at the Gardens Casino in Southern California on January 12 to 16, 2019.
Source:
https://calvinayre.com/2018/12/17/poker/wpt-five-diamond-world-poker-classic-dylan-linde-wins-1-6m-first-prize/
