Griffin Paul Wins 2015 WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown

Griffin Paul has won the 2015 World Poker Tour Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open $3,500 buy-in $5 million guaranteed no-limit hold’em main event, topping a field of 1,476 entries to capture the title and a $1,000,000 payday.

The 22-year-old poker pro from Calabasas, California also earned 1,440 Card Player Player of the Year points, moving him into 18th place in the overall POY standings when combined with the 84 points he earned for a third-place finish in a small field $1,100 prelim at the L.A. Poker Classic.

Paul came into the televised final table of six as the chip leader, with his 14.3 million chip stack accounting for approximately a third of chips in play. 2011 World Series of Poker bracelet winner Joe Ebanks came from behind with pocket nines to beat Andre Crooks’ pocket kings in a massive preflop all-in pot to give Ebanks a 3-to-2 chip lead heading into heads-up play.

Paul was able to win a race with AJ versus Ebanks’ 66 to regain the lead, and by the 33rd hand of heads up play held a roughly 3.5-to-1 lead over Ebanks. On the final hand of the tournament Paul limped from the button for 400,000 and Ebanks made it 1,500,000 to go with 8,525,000 million behind. Paul called and the flop came down KJ4. Ebanks lead for 1 million from out of position and Paul moved all-in. Ebanks called with the AJ only to find that Paul had flopped a higher pair with the K9.

The 4 on the turn and 6 on the river improved neither player, securing the pot and the title for Paul while Ebanks was sent to the rail with $615,000 for his second-place showing.

Here’s a look at the payouts and POY points awarded at this final table:

Place	Player	Earnings (USD)	POY Points
1	Griffin Paul	$1,000,000	1440
2	Joe Ebanks	$615,000	1200
3	Andre Crooks	$383,000	960
4	Shawn Nguyen	$323,500	720
5	Brian Green	$269,000	600
6	Ryan Rivers	$217,500	480

Photo courtesy of WPT / Joe Giron.

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