Dan Sepiol has taken down the WPT World Championship 2023 title after defeating Georgios Sotiropoulos in the heads-up match. The victory earned him the top $5,282,954 prize, thanks to a heads-up ICM chop. This marked the 29-year-old Indiana native’s first WPT title, accompanied by the additional rewards, including a $10,400 seat into the next year’s WPT World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas. Georgios Sotiropoulos walked away with a hefty $4,167,246 for his runner-up finish.
The World Poker Tour (WPT) kicked off its December 2023 extravaganza with multiple events such as WPT Big One For One Drop, WPT Prime Championship and WPT World Championship. Among these events, the WPT World Championship drew a record 3,835 entries. Despite the huge turnout, the event still fell short to meet its $40 million guarantee. The top six finishers of the event walked away with seven-figure paydays, with the largest chunk of the massive prize pool going to Daniel Sepiol.
This event ran from December 12-21, with four starting days and six more days of combined-field action. Plenty of notable earned a piece of the massive $40,000,000 prize pool, including Alex Foxen (39th), Roberto Romanello (38th), Kristen Foxen (33rd), James Chen (30th), and Ren Lin (20th).
Sepiol started the final day (final table) as the second-shortest stack but played some top-notch poker to overtake the lead. He earned more than a 4:1 chip lead when his pocket jacks held up against the A-K of Andrew Licthenberger. The latter walked away with $2,798,700 as the third-place finisher.
Heads-up play began with Sepiol holding 310,500,000 against 72,600,000 of Sotiropoulos. They played over 27 hands before a break in play when the two decided to strike an ICM deal. While Sotiropoulos was able to close the gap, he lost the penultimate hand with his QJ losing to Sepiol’s J2. Left with 22 big blinds, Sotiropoulos raised to 7,000,000 with Kh Qc and Sepiol three-bet shoved with his Kc 3h.
Sotiropoulos called and the board ran out Jd 8c 4h 3d 2d to give Sepiol a pair of threes for the title.
ALSO READ: CALVIN ANDERSON WINS 2023 WPT PRIME CHAMPIONSHIP ($1.4 MILLION)
WPT World Championship Final Table Payouts
1.Dan Sepiol $5,282,954
2. Georgios Sotiropoulos $4,167,246
3. Andrew Lichtenberger $2,798,700
4. Chris Moorman $2,095,300
5. Ben Heath $1,583,100
6. Artur Martirosian $1,207,000
Image Credit: CardPlayer
