The highly rated World Poker Tour Legends main event was played out at the Bicycle Casino in Bell gardens, California, last week. The tournament, which had a buy-in of $10,000, began on August 23 with a field of 373 and a prize pool of $3,545,738.
On August 28, the field narrowed down to the final six, who were Kyle Wilson, Amit Makhija, Zach Clark, John Phan, Paul Smith, and Trong Nguyen. Makhija was in the lead when the final table began. He met Phan in the heads up. Not for nothing is Phan known as “The Razor” in the poker fraternity. In a three and a half hour battle he whittled away Makhija’s stack and emerged winner. WPT commentator Mike Sexton called this “greatest heads-up match in WPT history”. The match will be aired on Fox Sports.
Phan’s share of the prize was $1,116,428 and the coveted WPT winner’s bracelet as well. Fans will recall that Phan had won two bracelets at the recently concluded WSOP 2008.