Iowan Dustin Dirksen Leads WPT Venetian After Day 1 March 6, 2021 3. CardsChat Presents: Big Winners of the Week (ending March 6, 2021) March 6, 2021 4. Heavy Hitters Make Day 2 in GGPoker Super. Sung Joo Hyun has won the 2021 World Poker Tour DeepStacks $1,600 buy-in no-limit hold’em main event held at The Venetian® Resort Las Vegas. The South Korean defeated a field of 812 total.
Sung Joo Hyun has won the 2021 World Poker Tour DeepStacks $1,600 buy-in no-limit hold’em main event held at The Venetian® Resort Las Vegas. The South Korean defeated a field of 812 total entries to earn the title and the top prize of $208,335, the largest score of his career. Hyun had earned his first World Series of Poker gold bracelet just over half of a year earlier, coming out on top of a field of 2,307 entries in a $500 buy-in WSOP Online event to earn $161,898. He now has career tournament earnings of $699,320.
In addition to the title and the money, Hyun was also awarded 912 Card Player Player of the Year points as the champion of this event. This win alone was enough to catapult him into seventh place in the 2021 POY race standings, which are sponsored by Global Poker.
The sizable turnout for this event saw the $500,000 guarantee more than doubled, with $1,161,160 ultimately paid out among the top 102 finishers.
Plenty of notables made deep runs in this event, including WSOP bracelet winner Ronnie Bardah (92nd – $2,585), WSOP Circuit main event winner Michael Trivett (90th – $2,835), Javier Zarco (81st – $3,090), WPT Championship winner Asher Conniff (76th – $3,090), Card Player Poker Tour main event winner Oddie Dardon (43rd – $4,635), Aaron Massey (38th -$4,635), three-time WPT champion and two-time bracelet winner Anthony Zinno (37th – $4,635), WPT champion Joe Tehan (31st – $5,330), and a pair of WSOP bracelet winners Erik Cajelais (17th – $11,120) and Joey Weissman (11th – $16,920).
The final day of this event began with eight players remaining, with Wayne Harmon in the lead and Hyun sitting on the third-shortest stack. he quickly began to climb up the leaderboard, starting by eliminating Iris Angeleri in eighth place ($27,495). Joris Springael was the next to fall. His pocket tens couldn’t hold up against the A-3 of Curtis Powell and he was sent to the rail with $34,560 for his seventh-place showing. Hyun found a double-up through Powell not long after that to continue his ascent up the chip counts. Powell got the last of his chips in not long after that with two pair against the flush draw of Hyun. The draw came in and Powell was knocked out in sixth place ($41,765).
Hyun overtook the lead by winning a big pot off of Wayne Harmon with the nut flush against a lower flush. Harmon was left short, but managed to double up through WPT champion Dylan Wilkerson to regain his footing. He then busted Wilkerson in fifth place ($52,580), winning a race with pocket tens against the A-Q suited of the 2014 WPT Emperors Palace Poker Classic winner to send him packing.
Chris Doan’s run in this event came to an end when his KJ came up against the A9 of Hyun. Doan failed to improve and was eliminated in fourth place ($69,025), while Hyun extended his lead heading into three-handed action. Roman Shainiuk closed the gap by busting Wayne Harmon in third place. It was a preflop race, with Shainiuk holding A8 and Harmon the 77. The board brought a flush for Shainiuk and Harmon had to settle for $93,280 as the third-place finisher.
With that Hyun took 13,310,000 into heads-up play against Shainiuk, who sat with 11,050,0000. Hyun was able to extend his lead to nearly a 4:1 advantage by the time the final hand was dealt. Shainiuk raised to 500,000 from the button with K6 and Hyun three-bet all-in holding KQ. Shainiuk called and the board came down Q923A. Hyun made a pair of queens to lock up the pot and the title, while Shainiuk took home $144,480 as the runner-up.
Here is a look at the payouts and POY points awarded at the final table:
| Place | Player | Earnings | POY Points |
| 1 | Sung Joo Hyun | $208,335 | 912 |
| 2 | Roman Shainiuk | $144,480 | 760 |
| 3 | Wayne Harmon | $93,280 | 608 |
| 4 | Christopher Doan | $69,025 | 456 |
| 5 | Dylan Wilkerson | $52,580 | 380 |
| 6 | Curtis Powell | $41,765 | 304 |
| 7 | Joris Springael | $34,560 | 228 |
| 8 | Iris Angeleri | $27,495 | 152 |
| 9 | Daniel Chambers | $20,605 | 76 |
Wpt Winners 2021
Winner photo credit: World Poker Tour.