Markholt Takes Down The Dragon and WPT Title

Filed in archive Tournament News on March 29, 2008

A reigning CardPlayer Player of the Year making a final table stands to show again that poker isn't about luck. Its all skill. You can stop laughing, but seriously, David "The Dragon" Pham isn't resting on his laurels of his award winning year as he headlined the final table of the last World Poker Challenge for the World Poker Tour.

Unfortunately for Pham he ran into the eventual champion Lee Markholt's higher kicker when both flopped top pair. With his 15th cash on the WPT, Markholt is banking $493,815 for the win. Bryan Devonshire, noted in yesterday's post, fought Markholt heads up for the title but fell short during his short lived heads up play as Ryan Lucchesi describes from WorldPokerTour.com's live blog:

Heads-up play was a short-lived affair. Just two hands in, Devonshire got all of his chips in the middle. After he was quickly called, Devonshire knew he was in trouble with his pair of fours. Trouble was an understatement, because Markholt had him drawing dead with two pair. Devonshire certainly enjoyed his time at the final table, and his second-place finish earned him $271,625.

Markholt was more than excited to finally get the monkey off his back and take down a WPT title. The former bull-rider walked away with $493,815 and a $25,000 seat into the WPT championship this April at Bellagio.