James Dempsey Wins $821,612

Published on December 12th, 2011 12:48 am EST

James Dempsey navigated his way through a star-studded field to take down the Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic earlier today.

Here is how the chip stacks looked entering the final day of play on Sunday:

Soi Nguyen - 4,995,000
James Dempsey - 3,860,000
Andrew Lichtenberger - 3,605,000
Vanessa Selbst - 2,250,000
Antonio Esfandiari - 1,255,000
Vitor Coelho - 560,000

Antonio Esfandiari won this same tournament last year and was looking to go back-to-back, but it wasn't meant to be. Esfandiari was the first player out on Sunday, as he suffered a bad beat at the hands of Dempsey (Esfandiari's A-10 < Dempsey's A-4 all-in pre-flop).

After Vanessa Selbst was eliminated in third place, James Dempsey and Soi Nguyen were left to battle it out for the title with nearly identical stacks.

Nguyen had Dempsey outchipped by a 13.4 million to 3.1 million margin at one point, but wasn't the former "November Nine" participant wasn't able to put his opponent away.

The decisive hand during heads-up play came when Dempsey pushed on a board of Qs-4c-2s-10s. At this point, Nguyen was enjoying a 10 million to 6.5 million chip advantage.

After a considerable amount of thought, Nguyen called and the two players turned up:

Nguyen - As-5d
Dempsey - Ad-Js

Both players had just Ace-high with gutshot straight draws and flush draws.

The river brought the Kh, giving Dempsey the very large pot.

The end came just a few hands later after Nguyen pushed holding Kc-Jd. Dempsey called with Kh-Qc, eventually winning the hand with a King-high straight.

Here is how the tournament ended up finishing out:

James Dempsey - $821,612
Soi Nguyen - $517,478
Vanessa Selbst - $338,351
Andrew Lichtenberger - $218,933
Vitor Coelho - $159,224
Antonio Esfandiari - $119,418


Photo: GreasieWheels.com

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Filed Under: Tournament Results