Chris Moore Follows up 3rd Place Finish with Title at Wynn Classic

Wednesday saw nine survivors make the noontime walk into the Wynn poker room for the final table of the second annual Wynn Classic Championship. What started out as a pro heavy field became a nine-handed orbit of mostly non-household names and a player looking to improve on a deep 2007 Wynn Classic finish.

Here's how the final table was set up:

1 - Ardavan Yazdi - 405,000

2 - Eugene Todd - 236,000

3 - Alemu Tesema - 230,000

4 - Larry Wright - 572,500

5 - Ricky Chow - 507,000

6 - Blake Cahail - 299,500

7 - Jace Markgraf - 167,500

8 - Ryan Young - 714,000

9 - Chris Moore - 536,000

The first elimination of the day was probably the most well known name. Tournament veteran Eugene Todd would run his pocket tens into the queens of Jace Markgraf and not improve, eliminating the Brooklyn native in 9th place. Todd's elimanation was followed by a stretch of short stack double ups, that is before freeroller Alemu Tesema bit the dust. Tesemu won his entry through a seat giveaway by the Wynn poker room. Sadly, Tesema's Cindarella story wasn't meant to be and he fell at the hands of Blake Cahail. Unexpectedly, Ricky Chow was the next to go. His stack would take a few hits, before Young slammed the door. Chow would call the all in bet of Young, his jacks out ahead of Youngs tens. The ten on the flop meant Chow was done, finishing in 7th place.

It took about four hours to eliminate the first three players, but less than a half an hour to bump the next trio. Larry Wright folded his way to six-handed play before coming up on the short end of a race with Cahail for his tournament life. He was followed by Markgraf, who tried shoving from the small blind, but was called and eventually busted by Young in the big blind. Ardavan Yazdi would complete the mini-rush of knock outs, shoving his pocket threes right into Cahail's two queens.

Cahail entered three-handed play with the shortest stack and would be the first to exit. Cahail was all in preflop with just Q-10 and couldn't improve against Young's J-J, pitting Young, who picked up a bracelet in the 2007 WSOP, and Moore, who finished 3rd at the $10K Wynn Classic Championship last year, in heads-up play. Young entered with a chip lead, but that would soon be surrendered. After the J-8-5 flop, Moore put in a check-raise to 400K, which triggered an all in from Young. Moore would make the call, his bottom two pair out in front of Youngs A-J, top pair top kicker. Young was crippled when he could not improve. Young was looking for a spot to get his money in and it didn't take much, Moore knew that much. More peeked at just one card and that king was enough for him to put Young all in. Young looked at the Ah and that was enough for him to go along for the ride. Young fanned out his cards to reveal Ah-5h. Moore uncovered another king and caught a set on the flop to ice it. Chris Moore pocketed nearly $700K for the championship win.

Complete payouts:

1 - Chris Moore - $692,286

2 - Ryan Young - $355,020

3 - Blake Cahail - $177,510

4 - Ardavan Yazdi - $95,855

5 - Jace Markgraf - $71,004

6 - Larry Wright - $53,253

7 - Ricky Chow - $44,378

8 - Alemu Tesema - $35,502

9 - Eugene Todd - $31,952

For live coverage of final table action from the Wynn, click here.

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