Alexander Lakhov wins 2014 partypoker WPT Merit North Cyprus Classic

Alexander Lakhov won the WPT National event last June in the exact same poker room where he claimed the $310,000 first prize for winning the WPT Merit North Cyprus Classic this week, defeating players like Toby "810ofclubs" Lewis and EPT Grand Final champion Nicolas Chouity.

The final table started out with the following players and chipstacks:

Seat 1: Ori Miller - 2.27 million chips

Seat 2: Nicolas Chouity - 4.39 million chips

Seat 3: Igor Devkin - 435.000 chips

Seat 4: Dmitry Gromov - 815,000 chips

Seat 5: Toby Lewis - 1.085 million chips

Seat 6: Alexander Lakhov - 3.13 million chips

The first player to bust out was Igor Devkin, he ran his QQ into Nicolas Chouity's KK, and the next one was Ori  Miller, who lost two big pots to get shortstacked, then jammed his remanining 15 big blinds with KJ, but Chouity had AA and Miller couldn't get lucky.

The next player to bust was Toby Lewis, he went all-in from the big blind after Gromov raised the small blind, and the Russian player called with AJ, and held up.

Gromov then won the biggest pot of the tournament. Chouity opened to 200,000 on the button, Gromov re-raised from the small blind to 550,000, and Chouity called. Gromovo bet 620,000 on the K95, 2 hearts flop and Chouity called. The turn 3 of spades put a second flush draw on the board, Gromov checked, Chouity bet 950,000 and Gromov check-raised all-in for a little over 3 million, and Chouity snap-called with the KQ of spades for top pair and a flushdraw.

Nicolas Chouity

Gromov turned over 22 for only a pair of deuces, and there was only one card in the deck, the deuce of diamonds that could help him. Chouity couldn't believe his eyes when the 1-outer hit the river and he was laughing and clapping at the horrible bad beat, but left the table in a relaxed and cheerful manner, collecting $140,000 for his third place finish.

Gromov's luck turned around a few hands later when his AA failed to hold up against Lakhov's AJ. Lakhov won a lot of the pots after his double-up and grinded down Gromov to 15 big blinds. Gromov then went-all in after a raise from Lakhov with A2, Lakhov called with JJ and held up to claim the title and the $310,000 first prize, as well as a $15,400 ticket for the WPT World Championship at Borgata.

Final results:

Player               Country               Prize

1 Alexander Lakhov Russia            $310,000

2 Dmitry Gromov Russia            $215,000

3 Nicolas Chouity Lebanon            $140,000

4 Toby Lewis         United Kingdom  $102,820

5 Ori Miller                 Israel             $77,000

6 Igor Devkin         Russia            $62,000