Ray Dehkharghani Wins Wynn Classic For $235k

Ray Dehkharghani has won the Card Player Poker Tour Wynn Classic Championship, after defeating a field of 207 players over four days to capture the title and collect the $235,931 first place prize.
Dehkharghani’s latest win in Las Vegas represents his biggest score ever, while pushing his live tournament earnings to $1,070,876. Impressively, the 42-year-old is mostly a limit hold’em and mixed-game cash games specialist, and commenting on his victory at the NL hold’em tournament, explained:
“I was at a big experience deficit and the guys at the final table, especially Sam [Stein] and Tom [Marchese], they are both very accomplished players. I just basically had a good day. I learned a lot from them, they are very technically proficient and it was just a great learning experience.”
The $5k Championship Event attracted a whole slew of players to the tournament, to create a prize pool worth $1,003,950. Amongst the notable names cashing in but falling short of the 10 seat final table was such players as Brad Booth in 22nd ($12,047), Loren Klein in 16th ($14,055), Christina Lindley in 15th ($16,063) and Sorel Mizzi in 11th ($18,071).
By the time the final table had been reached, Ray Dehkharghani was way out in front as the chip leader on a 1.37m stack, followed a distant second by Tom Marchese with 838k in chips. Other big names at the table included Sam Stein (621k) and Olivier Busquet (488k).
Eventually, Ray Dehkharghani would take a 2 to 1 chip advantage over Sam Stein into the heads-up phase of the competition, and before long both players were all-in preflop with Dehkharghani’s pocket kings up against the A-10 of his opponent. Unfortunately for Stein, the board then rolled out 10-9-8-5-7 to relegate him to a runner-up finish worth $170,672, while Ray Dehkharghani was crowned the Card Player Poker Tour Wynn Classic champion.
The final table payouts were as follows:
1 Ray Dehkharghani $235,931
2 Sam Stein       $170,672
3 Thomas Marchese $115,454
4 George Martov   $82,324
5 Ben Palmer       $58,229
6 Kevin Calenzo   $43,672
7 Ray Qartomy       $32,628
8 Soon Hwang       $27,609
9 Olivier Busquet $24,597
10 Hyoung Chae       $20,079