This year we might see Daren Elias made World Poker Tour history twice in a week by claiming the fourth career title whilst competing at the inaugural WPT Bobby Baldwin Classic in Las Vegas. Before his historic win, Elias had been tied with Gus Hansen, Carlos Mortensen, David “Chino” Rheem and Anthony Zinno on three titles – the win, however, marked the first time that the poker star pulled away from his illustrious competitors in a bid to occupy a top spot of his own.
The second title that Elias was eyeing was the WPT Tournament of Champions final table that was held at the Esports Arena Las Vegas at the Luxor. This is not the first that he has triumphed in this tournament though – in 2014, he accomplished a similar feat when he won the WPT Borgata Poker Open and the WPT Caribbean after that. That was also a record of its own since he was the first person to pull off something like that.
In October 2017, Darren Elias came very close to securing his fourth World Poker Tour title after entering the final table of the WPT bestbet Bounty Scramble in pole position. Unfortunately, things did not go so well after he was subsequently caught on the wrong end of some negative variance and ultimately ended up settling for the $135,548 price third place.
This time, everything seems to be working in Elias’ favor – after his record-breaking win on Wednesday he took to Twitter to announce it and that his fans for the overwhelming support he had received from them.
“I hope it keeps going like today,” Elias commented about his hopes of carrying on the momentum he had to win his second title this week. “Wins kind of come in bunches in poker I think and when you’re winning, you’re more confident and maybe you’re playing better, so hopefully, I can keep it going tomorrow and get another one.”
In the Saturday event, Darren Elias will face off against four other poker pros for the guaranteed payday of at least $89,290 where the winner will get to walk away with a whopping $43,375. Among the final five players will be some other serious poker talents like David Benyamine, Mathew Waxman, and Nick Schulman.
“With the Tournament of Champions, it helps that I’ve played with a lot of these players before,” Elias added. “So maybe I’m more familiar with their game or I can try to pick up on some things, wherein the other tournaments, it’s more random people.”
Here are the final table results for his first win:
Darren Elias $387,580
Kitty Kuo $248,380
Joe McKeehen $178,610
Dietrich Fast $130,895
Sam Panzica $97,795
Jonathan Little $74,520