Art Papazyan Triumphs over Hellmuth at WPT Legends

The WPT Legends of Poker Main Event was held at the Bicycle Casino in Los Angeles, with 763 players paying its $4,000 entry fee to create a prize pool of $2,738,407. Following a week of action, it was Art Papazyan who would eventually overcome the field, including Phil Hellmuth heads-up, to claim the coveted title, as well as a first place prize of $668,692.
That sum represent’s the lion’s share of Papazyan’s now $709,189 in career earnings, and after defeating Hellmuth in the final phase of the competition, the 14-times WSOP bracelet holder, who has yet to win a WPT title, exclaimed:
“It’s so unfair. I guess I’ll never win a WPT event. How do these players beat me?”
As one might imagine, the WPT Legends Main Event attracted a slew of recognizable pros, and amongst those finishing in one of the tournament’s cash places was Scotty Nguyen in 81st ($7,135), William Kassouf in 73rd ($7,135), Adam Geyer in 59th ($9,070), Jeremy Ausmus in 41st ($11,875), Allan Le in 24th ($17,430), David Baker in 11th ($31,510), and David Sands in 7th ($72,985).
At the final table, Hellmuth (Q-Q) subsequently eliminated Adam Swan (A-J) in 6th, but after being dealt pocket jacks and inducing a preflop all-in from D.J. Alexander (A-9), the board rolled out 2-9-6-A-2 to reduce Hellmuth to just 10 big blinds, and a classic Hellmuth rant of:
“Wow, how can you move in with all these hands? These f*cking donkeys are so bad. How in the hell are these f*cking donkeys so bad? I mean, how do you do it? You don’t deserve that hand.”
Nevertheless, Helmuth managed to recover his stack and composure and eventually progressed through to heads-up against Art Papazyan, with the two players fairly even in chips. By the time he had been reduced to a 3 to 1 chip deficit, though, the deciding hand was played with Papazyan moving all-in preflop holding K-Q, only to be called by Helmuth with a dominating A-K. The Q-10-8-5-3 board which ensued then dealt a final blow to Hellmuth, with the WSOP legend’s chances ironically ending with bad beat.
Congratulations to Art Papazyan on his impressive performance and victory!
Final Table Results:
1: Art Papazyan $668,692
2: Phil Hellmuth $364,370
3: J.C. Tran $217,040
4: D.J. Alexander $161,490
5: Marvin Rettenmaier $120,775
6: Adam Swan $91,825