Farid Yachou wins WPT Amsterdam for $239,000

Farid Yachou, a Moroccan-born restaurant owner who lives in the Netherlands has never played a live tournament before but that didn't stop him from defeating a tough final table on his way to winning the $239,000 first place prize.

Six players returned for the final table of the €3,300 WPT Amsterdam Main Event including the winner of the WPT Amsterdam High Roller, Jason Wheeler and Dutch pro Joep van den Bijgaart.

Play started with the following stacks on Level 25 (15,000/30,000-5,000 ante).

Seat 1: Jason Wheeler - 1.095.000
Seat 2: Fredrik Andersson - 2.195.000
Seat 3: Kees van Brugge - 1.270.000
Seat 4: Joep van den Bijgaart - 1.650.000
Seat 5: Farid Yachou - 1.195.000
Seat 6. Steve Warburton - 2.810.000

Farid Yachou, a restaurant owner who mostly plays cash games with his friends won a big pot early on, eliminating Jason Wheeler. Yachou raised to 65,000 from the button and Wheeler defended his big blind. The flop was J-2-3 and Wheeler check/called a bet of 70,000, then checked again when a 5 hit the turn. This time Yachou bet 175,000, Wheeler shoved for 800,000 and Yachou called.

Yachou: 3-3
Wheeler: J-5

Wheeler needed to improve to stay alive, but the river was a King and he was sent packing in sixth place.

Van den Bijgaart and Andersson were eliminated shortly after and heads-up play was set with the elimination of van Brugge.

Wartburton and Yachou had almost even stacks to start the heads-up, but Yachou scored a big double up with a set against two pair to take over the chip lead with 8.25 million chips, while Warburton was left with 2.1 million.

Not much later the players got their stacks in the middle.

Yachou: 6-6
Warburton: A-8

The board ran out 3-4-9-4-3 and with that Farid Yachou won the first ever live tournament he entered, for which he received $239.559.

Final table results:

1. Farid Yachou - $239.559
2. Steve Warburton - $167.134
3. Kees van Brugge - $100.281
4. Fredrik Andersson - $75.768
5. Joep van den Bijgaart - $56.826
6. Jason Wheeler - $45.973

Payouts:

7. $37.884
8. $30.641
9. $22.842
10-12. $16.323
13-15. $13.371
16-18. $11.365
19-21. $10.028
22-24. $8.914
25-27. $7.800
28-36. $7.242
37-45. $6.685