Tommy Vedes Wins WPT Festa al Lago Championship

Published on October 27th, 2009 4:12 am EST

Tommy Vedes outlasted 274 other players to win the 2009 WPT Festa al Lago Championship on Monday evening, earning himself over $1.2 million dollars in the process.

Jason Lavallee seemingly had Tommy Vedes on the ropes in heads up play, managing to accumulate nearly 13 million chips compared to the 3.5 million of Vedes.

However, momentum quickly swung in Vedes' direction, and the tournament was over just eight hands later.

Vedes was seemingly done in Hand #115 of the final table, pushing his last 3.76 million into the middle of the table, only to be snap-called by Lavallee.

Lavallee turned up A-J, while Vedes showed his dominated A-10 suited.

The flop brought a 10, giving Vedes the lead in the hand. The turn and river helped neither player, and Vedes had received his miracle double-up.

A few hands later and the two players were all-in once again. Lavallee had a slight chip advantage prior to this hand taking place.

After a pre-flop raise from Vedes, Lavallee pushed all-in holding pocket fours. Vedes called holding pocket fives, and was far ahead in the hand.

The board helped neither player, and suddenly Vedes was the one with the dominating chip advantage.

The final hand of the tournament saw Lavallee move his short stack all-in holding 8h-6h, while Vedes called with Kd-Qd.

Vedes ended up making trip Queens to win the hand and the title.

Lavallee, who was agonizingly close to victory, will have to make do with his $795,150 consolation prize.

Freddy Deeb, who was gunning for his record-tying third WPT title, ended up finishing in fourth place for nearly $280k. Deeb now has over $6.5 million dollars in lifetime tournament earnings.

Here is how the final table finished up on Monday:

1. Tommy Vedes, $1,218,225
2. Jason Lavallee, $795,150
3. Craig Crivello, $477,090
4. Freddy Deeb, $278,300
5. Jason Burt, $208,725
6. Shawn Cunix, $168,970

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Tommy Vedes continues his hot run in 2009 that has seen him go deep in a number of major tournaments.

With his victory on Monday evening, Vedes now has over $1.8 million dollars in lifetime tournament earnings.

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Filed Under: Tournament Results