Paul Volpe beats Eli Elezra in the first Championship Event

The American grinder captured his third WSOP bracelet in the $10,000 Omaha Hi-Lo 8 or Better Championship.

"I just ran like, really, really good, I think a lot of people with the same cards as me would have won the tournament."

The first Championship Event of the Series attracted 169 players, who created a prize pool of $1,588,600, with 26 places paid. The bubble burst on Day 2 when Daniel Ratigan busted. Only 22 players returned to Day 3. Daniel Alaei, Felipe Ramos, Mike Gorodinsky and Mike Matusow all had high hopes to make it to the final table, but none of them succeeded, unlike Dustin Dirksen (6th; $69,971), Viacheslav Zhukov (5th; $94,730) or Kyle Miaso (4th; $129,648).

Adam Coats, a dealer at the Casino Caribbean in Kirkland was the one to compete with Elezra and Volpe in the three-handed. Adam had the loudest rail with many of his friends rooting for him at the PokerGO feature table at the Rio All-Suites Hotel & Casino.

Eventually, he had to settle for third-place, which is a great achievement in the pro-heavy field and the $181,374 prize is certainly a nice reward for his performance.

The heads-up started with Volpe holding the lead and he managed to widen the gap by winning a number of sizeable pots. In the final hand, he flopped a straight against the middle pair and gutshot straight draw of Elezra's. Eli wasn't able to get there and Paul became a three-times WSOP champion.

With this win, he now has $7,238,757 in total live earnings, while runner-up, Eli can't complain with his $3,434,741 either.

Final results