James Romero Triumphs at 2016 WPT Five Diamond Classic

The WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic Main Event was held at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, with a total of 791 competitors forking out $10,400 each to create a prize pool worth $7,672,700. It would then take six days of action before the ultimate champion was crowned, in this case a relatively unheard of player in the guise of James Romero.
Prior to the WPT main event, the Oregon native has tended to concentrate mostly on cash games and the online arena, with his live results on the Hendon Mob website having shown a meager $4,699 from two tournaments. Following his victory on Saturday night, however, Romero has become Oregon’s second biggest tournament winner, although he still lies a fair distance behind the state’s number 1 earner Annie Duke on $4,270,548.
The WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic Main Event attracted a number of notable pros, and amongst those seeing a return on their buy-ins was Dan O’Brien in 34th ($38,364), Christian Harder in 27th ($45,269), Jared Jaffee in 20th ($45,269), David Sands in 14th ($61,382), JC Tran in 10th ($76,727), Taylor Paur in 8th ($153,454), and Chris Klodnicki in 7th ($207,163).
James Romero subsequently entered the final table with more than double the chips of his nearest rival Ryan Tosoc. Romero (Q-Q) then eliminated Igor Yaroshevskyy (A-10) in 6th, followed by Alex Condon in 4th, and Jake Schindler in 3rd to go heads-up against Ryan Tosoc for the title.
At this stage, Romero held a seven-to-one chip lead over his remaining opponent, and just sixteen hands later Tosoc shoved his 13bb stack preflop holding pocket fives, only to be snapped called by Romero with pocket kings. With no help from the board, Tosoc collected an impressive $1,124,051 runner-up consolation prize, while James Romero took down the biggest WPT 5 Diamond main event tournament ever held.
Final Table Results:
1: James Romero $1,938,118*
2: Ryan Tosoc $1,124,051
3: Jake Schindler $736,579
4: Alex Condon $494,889
5: Justin Bonomo $345,272
6: Igor Yaroshevskyy $268,545