Gregory De Faria Wins WPT Prime Voyage Championship

The 2024 World Poker Tour Prime Voyage Championship $500,000 guaranteed $1,100 buy-in drew 968 entries, nearly doubling the guarantee to create a final prize pool of $968,000. The largest chunk of that sum was ultimately awarded to Brazil’s Gregory De Faria, who earned $155,400 as the eventual champion. Prior to this victory, De Faria’s largest recorded score was just shy of $4,000.

De Faria also earned 912 Card Player Player of the Year points for the win, enough to move him within reach of the top 150 in the 2024 POY standings presented by Global Poker.

This event featured three starting flights from April 1-3, with those who bagged up combining into a single field of April 4 to play down to a winner. There were 122 that moved on to day 2, all of whom locked up at least $2,000.

Plenty of big names ran deep in this event, including Princess Love (61st), Calvin Anderson (55th), Dylan Wilkerson (21st), Jesse Sylvia (19th), and Darren Rabinowitz (10th).

2013 World Series of Poker main event winner and 2017 WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown champion Ryan Riess bowed out in ninth place ($14,600) when his A-2 was unable to beat the K-J of Nico Betbese.

Lukas Zaskodny then lost a preflop race to finish eighth ($18,500). He was followed to the rail by Gustavo Carmona (7th – $24,000), whose queen-high straight ran into the king-high straight of De Faria.

Allison Hollander’s run ended in sixth place ($31,000) when her K-Q clashed with the A-7 suited of Brandon Takao. Hollander picked up a gutshot on the turn, but Takao ended up with two pair to win the pot and narrow the field to five.

Pocket sevens squared off against A-Q suited in the next big flip, and Brian Monigold headed to the cashier to collect $41,000 after his pair was bested. Trent Hopper moved into the lead when his pocket queens held against the A-2 of Takao (4th – $54,000).

De Faria picked up A-J against the K-J of Betbese (3rd – $72,000) and held to move back in front going into heads-up. Nearly an hour and a half after Bestbese was eliminated, De Faria and Hopper got all-in for the final hand. De Farua shoved with Q9 and Hopped called for a bit shy of 10 big blinds with K6. The board ran out 853Q5 to give De Faria a flush for the win. Hopper earned $97,000 as the runner-up.

Here is a look at the payouts and POY points awarded at the final table:

Photo credit: WPT.