Eric Afriat Wins His Third World Poker Tour Main Event Title

Eric Afriat has won the 2020 World Poker Tour Fallsview Poker Classic $5,000 CAD no-limit hold’em main event. The Canadian outlasted a field of 549 entries in the event to win his third WPT main event title, becoming just the sixth player in the tour’s history to win three or more events on the main tour. The 2014 WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown and 2018 WPT Borgata Winter Poker Open champion now has more than $3.1 million in career earnings in WPT events, making up the majority of his $3.7 million in total live tournament cashes.

“It’s surreal. It just feels incredible. Three-time WPT champion,” Afriat told WPT reporters after securing the victory. “When I sat down, I said to myself, I just want to win in Niagara Falls. I just want to win in my country. To win in Canada, with the Canadian flag, it’s amazing. It’s a great, great feeling. I haven’t been happy like this in a long time.”

The final day of this event began with 15 players remaining, with Afriat sitting in 10th chip position when play resumed. Afriat managed to survive to six-handed action as the shortest stack, bringing just 15 big blinds to the WPT final table. Zuhair Al-Pachachi was the first to fall when he ran A10 into the AK of Trung Hien Nguyen. The ace-king held and Al-Pachachi settled for $77,027 USD as the sixth-place finisher.

Afriat managed to double up twice in rapid succession during five-handed play, both times getting all-in with a pocket pair up against an opponent who held pocket aces. In both instances, his pairs improved to three of a kind to beat out the aces. As a result, Afriat managed to surge back up the chip counts.

Afriat also scored the next knockout at the final table, picking up JJ and calling the all-in shove of Demosthenes Kiriopoulos, who won this very event in 2019. Kiriopoulos was behind with the 109 and failed to improve. The defending champion was eliminated in fifth place, earning $93,917 USD for his impressive run at winning this event in back-to-back years. Afriat moved into a virtual tie for the chip lead with Adam Hui after sending Kiriopoulos to the rail.

Trung Hien Nguyen’s tournament came to an end when he got his last chips in with A6 and was called by Adam Hui’s AQ. Hui made the nut flush on the turn to knock Nguyen out in fourth place. He was awarded $122,361 USD for his strong showing.

Afriat began to pull away from the pack during three-handed action. The two shorter stacks then clashed in an all-in showdown, with Adam Hui shoving A9 from the button and getting called by the QJ of big blind Marc-Olivier Carpentier-Perrault. The board came down J10763 and Hui was eliminated in third place ($170,905 USD).

With that Afriat entered heads-up play with 13,150,000 to Carpentier-Perrault’s 10,625,000. It took just five hands for him to convert that lead into a victory. In the final hand, Carpentier-Perrault picked up A5 on the button and raised to 500,000. Afriat three-bet to 2,000,000 with 77. Carpentier-Perrault moved all-in for 9,520,000 total and Afriat made the call. The Q10282 runout secured the pot and the title for Afriat. Carpentier-Perrault cashed for $265,805 USD as the runner-up finisher.

In addition to the title and the money, Afriat was also awarded 1,680 Card Player Player of the Year points as the champion of this event. It was his first POY-qualified score of the year, but it alone was enough to see him move into seventh place in the 2020 POY race standings, which are sponsored by Global Poker.

Here is a look at the payouts and POY points awarded at the final table:

Winner photo provided by WPT / Jamie Thomson.

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