Nick Yunis is the WPT bestbet Scramble Championship winner after 18 hands of heads-up play with WPT Player of the Year front-runner Yunkyu Song.
In dramatic fashion, Yunis hit a three-outer on the river to claim the title and a career-high score of $315,791, which includes a Golden Passport and a $10,400 seat into the season-ending WPT World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas, after a heads-up deal.
Eric Afriat came into the day with an overwhelming chip lead, looking to secure his record-tying fourth WPT title (Darren Elias). Unfortunately, Afriat’s dominance over the table would become undone in three-handed play, with Yunis pulling off a masterclass river bluff to completely shift the tournament.
'Biggest goal I've ever accomplished'
After Afriat suffered a bad beat at the hands of Song, Yunis dominated heads-up play to secure his biggest victory to date.
“It’s the biggest goal I’ve ever accomplished in my life,” he told the media after his win.
“There’s been moments where I considered different careers but I didn’t want to quit until I accomplished winning some kind of major title. I’ve finished fourth, third, and second at WSOP, and to me, they don’t count. So this win is so important to me.
“Even though logically it may be a little bit silly, I’ve won some big stuff online, but this is the World Poker Tour. It’s the Main Event. All of us tournament players are competitive, we all want to win this, so it’s huge for me.”
Yunis also becomes the first player from Chile to win a WPT title. While he wanted to be the first to win a WSOP bracelet, he feels a great sense of national pride in being a trailblazer in the Chilean poker community.
“From the very beginning of my career, I’ve always made sure to ask reporters to put the Chilean flag next to my name. I really wanted to be the first to win a bracelet but my friend Alex (Ramirez) won one this year (laughs). But now I can say that I’m the first Chilean to win a WPT Main Event. It’s really cool.
“Being the number one GPI player from Chile was my proudest accomplishment until this. So it’s really important to me.”
With the win, Yunis now has over $2.7 million in live career tournament earnings, and with a new baby boy, the win couldn’t come at a more perfect time.
“I really want to spend much more time with my family, it’s a huge goal of mine. This money will really help with that, which is the most important thing at the end of the day. Why do we want money? We want to buy our time.
“So being able to spend time with my son, spend more time with my wife, and help out a lot more. We’re in a very transitional period right now so there’s a lot of stuff to do.
“Am I going to keep playing these big tournaments? Absolutely, this is what I do for a living. But this will allow me to spend a lot more time with my family and be much more relaxed.”
Funaro falls early
Dion Jagroo was the first player eliminated today after coming into the day in sixth place ($71,000). Jagroo was quite unfortunate after losing a massive flip against Song. Jagroo’s 
flopped beautifully against Song’s 
, making top-top on the 
flop. Unfortunately, the board ran out 
to give Song an unlikely runner-runner flush.
Though Jagroo was left with less than three big blinds, he managed to briefly spin it up before flatting the small blind with 
off six bigs following Afriat’s cutoff open with 
. Yunis had also called from the big blind. On the 
flop, Jagroo immediately jammed all in and Afriat made the call. The board ran out 
and we lost our first player of the day.
Later in the level, we saw the noteworthy bust out of 22-year-old Funaro. The younger brother of Franky Funk took an extremely unconventional line against Yunis that didn’t work out in his favor. Despite starting the day in second place, Funaro took home $91,000 for his efforts, good for the second-highest score of his career.
Next to go was experienced cash-game pro Joe Jordan, who finished in fourth place for $123,000. Jordan, who doesn’t have much tournament experience, managed to be a big stack from the opening day and parlayed that into a six-figure score. He eventually bluffed king-high into Yunis’ flopped full house to go down to 3 big blinds. On the next hand, his 
wasn’t able to find any life against Afriat’s 
, and he went home just short of a WPT title.
In third place was Afriat, who fell just short of becoming the second player in WPT history to win four titles. Afriat was the far-and-away chip leader until three-handed play when a huge bluff by Yunis shifted sent Afriat to below 30 bigs. After falling to 20 big blinds, Afriat got all in with 
against the 
of Song in a blind war. However, Song spiked a nine on a monotone club flop and dodged the flush draw to send Afriat home packing with $165,000, his 15th-career score of at least six figures.
Yunis closes the deal
Afriat's elimination set up a showdown between Yunis and Song, who came into the day fourth and fifth in chips, respectively, with Yunis holding roughly a 2:1 chip lead. Yunis would take a 5:1 chip lead on the very first hand as Song triple-barreled a missed flush draw into Yunis’ turned two pair, which just happened to be a better club flush draw as well. Yunis would win the next hand as well and, with the blinds increasing, Yunis held a 127-18 big blind advantage.
On the 4th hand of heads-up play, Yunis jammed 
for 15 bigs effective and Song called it off with a dominating . The board ran clean and Song got his much-needed double up. By hand number 10, Song was back up to over 40 blinds and crawled back to a 3:1 deficit.
However, on hand number 15, Song was caught bluffing into Yunis’ trips and was back down to a 6:1 dog. Yunis kept chipping away over the next couple of hands and Song found himself with just 12 big blinds.
On the hand number 18, Yunis shoved 
and Song called with 
and they were off to the races, with many expecting a chop.
The flop was a pretty uneventful 
but the turn gave Song a flush draw. He could also win with a five or even a deuce, as that would make his five play. However, a stunning brought a shock end to the tournament, with Yunis standing in absolute disbelief with his hands above his head.
Thanks to a heads-up deal, Song went home with $252,059 for his second-place efforts. If there’s any consolation, Song now vaults into first place in the WPT Player of the Year race heading into the WPT World Championship.
Photos courtesy of World Poker Tour/Katerina Lukina
