Scott Seiver Wins World Poker Tour Championship

Scott Seiver took the chip lead with three players left to play and rode that advantage to first place at the 2011 World Poker Tour Championship. Seiver, 26, won $1,618,344 along with his first World Poker Tour title.

Seiver faced a final table that may have had few household names involved, but featured plenty of talent. Perhaps his stiffest competition looked to be Galen Hall, who has had some of the best tournament results in the world thusfar in 2011.

But Hall was eliminated in 3^rd place. Although he had the chip lead for some time, he found himself losing chips rapidly during three-handed play. Once he was short-stacked, Hall pushed with jack-high, which Seiver was quick to call with KT. Seiver made trips on the flop, eliminating Hall.

That left Seiver heads up with a 3-1 chip advantage over Farzad Bonyadi. After a two-hour battle, Bonyadi faced an all-in move from Seiver and chose to make a fateful river call. Bonyadi had two pair, but was outgunned by Seiver’s straight. The tournament still provided Bonyadi – a two-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner – his largest ever cash, as he earned $1,061,900 for second place.

For Seiver, his most recent victory was enough to bring his lifetime tournament earnings to over $4 million. While Seiver is probably best known as a cash game player, he has shown excellent results in tournament play as well, including winning a WSOP bracelet in 2008.

The 2011 World Poker Tour Championship featured 224 players and a buy-in of $25,000. Here are the results from the final table:

1^st: Scott Seiver - $1,618,344
2^nd: Farzad Bonyadi - $1,061,900
3^rd: Galen Hall - $589,355
4^th: Roger Teska - $371,665
5^th: Tony Gargano - $278,749
6^th: Justin Young - $225,654