Art Papazyan Wins WPT Maryland Main Event For 2nd WPT Title of Season

Art Papazyan
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  • PG News October 6, 2017
  • 2 Minutes Read

The WPT Maryland at Live Casino! $3,500 Main Event attracted a field of 561 runners and the last player standing was Art Papazyan (cover image) who banked the $389,405 top prize. With this win, Papazyan picked up his second World Poker Tour title, all in a span of just five weeks!

In the history of the WPT, 26 players have won more than one WPT title and prior to the Season XVI WPT Maryland tournament, only seven had won multiple titles in the same season. Papazyan is now the eighth WPT champion to accomplish this feat and joins the coveted club that features names like Gus Hansen (Season I), Howard Lederer (Season I), Erick Lindgren (Season II), Tuan Le (Season III), Darren Elias (Season XIII), Anthony Zinno (Season XIII) and Sam Panzica (Season XV).

His first-place prize also included a $15,000 seat into the season-ending WPT Tournament of Champions, but since Papazyan had already won his entry after he took down the WPT Legends of Poker Main Event just over one month ago, he pocketed the cash equivalent of the seat.

An elated Papazyan shared his feelings with WPT.com post his win. “I feel like this is not even real. Who would have thought I play my first WPT and I win against Phil Hellmuth? Then I play my second WPT, I come to Maryland across the country, and I win again? I would never have thought in my wildest dreams that this would ever happen. I’m so happy it did.”

“I’ve worked really hard on my game in the past year thanks to my friends who really helped me with my game. I owe a lot to them. I’m fortunate to be in this position now.” he added.

The event featured two starting flights and guaranteed $2 million in prizes however; with 561 entries there was a $150,000 overlay.

Many notables made it in the money but busted short of the final table including Darren Elias, Sam Grafton, Dan Heimiller, Aaron Mermelstein, Andrew Brokos, Ari Engel, Christian Harder and DJ Alexander.

Matt Glantz (11th place) and Zachary Gruneberg (10th place) were the two players to bubble the unofficial final table of nine.

After Kenny Nguyen and Joshua Gordon busted in eighth and seventh respectively, the official six-handed final table was set.

Play stopped with Tom Reynolds leading the final table while Papazyan bagged the third biggest stack and the remaining six finalists returned the next day to play down to a champion.

 

Final Table Recap

Timothy Chang was the first one out on the final day and took a brutal beat to hit the rails. He shoved holding and was in good shape against Reynolds’ but the river spiked the ended Chang`s run in sixth place.

Papazyan lost a major part of his stack to a couple of failed bluffs but managed to get some chips and then went on to recover after he won a huge hand against Grigoriy Shvarts. Shvarts became short and exited shortly thereafter in fifth place.

Papazyan then eliminated Randal Heeb after the latter’s tens failed to improve against Papazyan’s aces and he took over the chip lead.

Zachary Donovan however managed to bridge the gap to less than 2-1 when he eliminated the start-of-day chip leader Tom Reynolds to set up the long heads-up duel.

The heads-up play lasted almost two hours and on the final hand Papazyan woke up with . Donovan shoved for about 18 big blinds from the button with getting the easy call from Papazyan. The board blanked out and just like that Papazyan won his second WPT title this season!

Art Papazyan
Art Papazyan

Final Table Results (USD)

1. Art Papazyan – $389,405

2. Zachary Donovan – $262,930

3. Tom Reynolds – $168,990

4. Randal Heeb – $120,165

5. Grigoriy Shvarts – $92,015

6. Timothy Chang – $76,620

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