After nearly 18 hours of play a winner has emerged from a field of 178 in Event #13: $3,300 High Roller here at the 2024 World Series of Poker Playground. When the dust had settled Demosthenes Kiriopoulos was the last player standing, last defeating Samuel Roussy-Majeau in heads-up play to take home his first circuit ring and the $140,000 winner’s payout.
Kiriopoulos started the day with a middling stack. He picked up momentum part way through the day to become one of the bigger stacks in the field. From there he managed to make the the money and only heat up as he demolished his way through the final tables to win the event.
Final Table Result
| Place | Player | City | Prize (CAD) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Demosthenes Kiriopoulos | Toronto | $140,000* |
| 2 | Samuel Roussy-Majeau | Montreal | $98,000* |
| 3 | Manish Ralh | Milton | $60,000 |
| 4 | David Quang | Guelph | $37,000 |
| 5 | Jonathan Newman | Toronto | $28,000 |
| 6 | Tyler Warken | Medicine Hat | $23,900 |
| 7 | Gaetano Di Maria | London | $20,000 |
| 8 | Alexander Wong | Ottawa | $17,150 |
| 9 | Youssef Hmama | Vancouver | $13,800 |
*Denotes Two Way Chop
Action of the Night
The eleventh of fifteen circuit events attracted a total of 198 entrants, generating a total prize pool of $594,000 to surpass the $500,000 guarantee. Some notable players who fell on Day 2 before the money was reached include WPT winners Frederic Normand and Eric Afriat. As well as WSOP bracelet winners Chanracy Khun, Sebastien Aube, and Jimmy Setna.
Aube was the unlucky player to burst the bubble when he flopped trip aces and lost to a runner-runner flush. From there, the remaining players were guaranteed at least $4,500. It wasn’t long before the three table redraw occurred and players were guaranteed double their buy in. Gaetano Di Maria led the players with a stack of 730,000. He found prior success in the series winning Event #8: $1,000 NLH. This only continued as he found his way to a seventh place finish in this event ($20,000).
Kiriopoulos found a few eliminations to overtake Maria as the chip leader heading into the two table redraw However, Roussy-Majeau started building a monster stack with two tables left. He closed the gap to the chip lead by sending Xin Chen to the rail. He found a few more eliminations before he entered the final table third in chips.
The first elimination from the final table took little time. From there action slowed as players sat deep stacked. It took an hour of play before another elimination occurred. Shortly after, Kiriopoulos soared to the chip lead with top pair top kicker against Maria. Roussy-Majeau scored an elimination to lessen the gap between the top stacks. A cunning check raise against Kiriopoulos allowed him to overtake the chip lead five handed. His run good continued as he soon after found the perfect river to add to his stack. By this point Roussy-Majeau held half of the chips in play.
Both players found an elimination as heads up play began. They took little time to agree to an ICM chop and blind all in until a winner was delcared splitting the money set aside evenly. As the 3:1 underdog, Kiriopoulos needed to win two flips to best Roussy-Majeau. The first hand was a chop before Kiriopoulos proved to be the better blind player and win back-to-back all ins to take the tournament.
Make sure to check out the other series PokerNews is covering as the 2024 World Series of Poker Playground comes to a close.