Eugene Katchalov won this year’s WPT Doyle Brunson classic in record time to pocket almost $2.5 million.
The American, who was chip leader going into the final table, picked up the winners cheque after just 53 hands to beat a record that Brunson himself had set in 2004 by winning the Legends of Poker WPT event.
In fact, it was a day for records as the 664 players who originally entered the tournament generated a prize pool of $9.6million dollars – an amount never previously seen outside of the WPT World Championship and the main event at the World Series of Poker.
It was Katchalov who benefited most from this huge prize pool though. Once the action got underway, he wasted no time in extending his cheap lead and hardly put a foot wrong all afternoon. He faced Ted Kearly in the heads-up with a chip stack almost six times the size of his opponent, and the writing was on the wall when Kearly lost a third of his chips only a couple of hands later.
Along with the winners cheque, Katchalov will also receive a seat in the WSOP main event next year.