The richest tournament in World Poker Tour history came to an end in the early hours of Tuesday morning, April 25, with Las Vegas poker pro and resident Joseph Bartholdi scooping the $3,760,165 first prize.

Bartholdi beat Davidson Matthew in heads-up play to snatch the spoils shortly before 2am in the morning.

The endgame saw a final hand of Matthew’s 10-4h flush draw up against Bartholdi’s 9-5 with two hearts and a 9 showing on the flop. The extra heart never came for Matthew and Bartholdi’s pair of nines was enough.

Bartholdi won his seat at the tournament by winning a $3,000 satellite at the Bellaglio, while Matthew qualified via a $25 online tourney.

The progress of Matthew has been one of the great stories of the  tournament held at the Bellagio this past week. The player from Toronto successfully transformed his initial $25 stake into $1,903,950.

Previous winners of this flagship WPT tournament are Alan Goehring, Martin de Knijff and Tuan Le.

A six day battle saw a field of 605 players whittled down to just half a dozen going into the televised live final stage.

The six players who made the final table in chip order were: James Van Alstyne, Joseph Bartholdi, Claus Neilson, Men “The Master” Nguyen, Davidson Matthew and Roland De Wolf.

Big stack Van Alstyne’s highlight on the way to the final table was knocking out Phil Hellmuth, when his Nut straight beat the Brat’s set.

Roland de Wolfe is a professional player and ex-journalist from our sister publication Inside Edge, and was the only previous winner of a WPT title in the final six. He sat down at the final table as the short stack and played very well to eventually finish third and pocket $1,025,025.

The unlucky individual eliminated before the TV stage was the last female player left in the tournament Vanessa Rousso who collected $263,625. She was knocked out as she went all-in with A-K and was called by Van Alstyne with A-J. A Jack arrived on the board and Rousso was cruelly knocked out.

Final positions and prizes:

1. Joseph Bartholdi, $3,760,165
2. Davidson Matthew, $1,903,950
3. Roland De Wolf, $1,025,025
4. Claus Neilson, $695,120
5. James Van Alstyne, $439,375
6. Men “The Master” Nguyen, $292,915