Back-to-back -- it’s a simple concept; easy to say and fun to imagine.
In most sports, achieving back-to-back championship titles is difficult, but it has been done. In Major League Baseball, for example, there hasn’t been a repeat World Series championship team in 21 years since the New York Yankees did it in 1998, '99, and 2000.
While poker is predominantly a game of skill, there is certainly a luck component, as well. It creates a lot of variance, as do the big fields and the varying levels of skills among the players.
For these reasons, in 20 seasons of poker tournaments, the World Poker Tour has never had a back-to-back champion in the same event. Only one player has ever won the same Main Event in non-consecutive years, and that person was Brian Altman, who won the WPT Lucky Hearts Poker Open Championship in 2015 and '20.
Last year, Adedapo Ajayi won the WPT Choctaw Main Event for $558,610. He returned this year to try for back-to-back titles and do what no other poker player had done on the World Poker Tour. And he almost did it.
Not a Pro, Not Exactly an Amateur
Dapo Ajayi started his poker life as most players do, playing with friends in college. It was always live poker, and he continues to play a home game with a group in Denver, where he lives.
He took an interest in tournament poker in the mid-2010s. He would drive the hour from Denver to Bally’s Black Hawk – then named Golden Gates Casino – and play the occasional tournament. He did well, too, making final tables of events at the Colorado Poker Championship and Mid-States Poker Tour series.
At that time, Ajayi had a job that made occasional poker play ideal. He was an energy engineer working for a company based in Las Vegas, but conservation projects also took him to places like Arizona and California where there were many cities with casinos or cardrooms at the ready. "I was always able to work during the day and find a poker room at night," he said. "Having a young family, the travel gave me an ‘out’ to play poker when I was on the road. If I had to be gone three days for work, you can be sure that I’d be in a cardroom two of those nights."
Finding the Big Win
That cash game play on the road was fun, but Ajayi found that he really enjoyed tournaments more. "I like the dynamic. I like the pressure I can put on people."
One of his business trips in 2019, before he quit the job, took him to Dallas. He extended the trip to play a tournament at Choctaw Durant. It was the World Series of Poker Circuit series, and he jumped into the $1,700 buy-in Main Event. He finished in second for nearly $200K, but that wasn't enough. He wanted that win.
Ajayi did find victory in Las Vegas in February 2019. He took down a small side event at the Wynn Classic, but he still wanted more.
He finished in second place at the 2019 WPT Montreal Main Event for more than $250K and second in the '20 WSPO Circuit Thunder Valley Main Event for more than $91K.
The pandemic kept him away from the tables for a while, as it did most poker players, but he hit the tables again in 2021. It was that July when he went back to Durant for the WPT Choctaw Main Event. He bought in for $3,700, as did nearly 1,000 other people. He weaved his way through the crowd with his eyes on the biggest chunk of the $3,272,780 prize pool, which he claimed for $558,610.
Exploring Opportunities
Quitting his engineering job was a result of COVID, crypto falling into place, big poker scores, and the desire to pursue other opportunities. "I decided the 9-to-5 life wasn’t really for me," Ajayi said. By no means, though, did that mean he was going to be a full-time poker pro. "I’m involved with some mortgage lending, and I have an Amazon store. And now, I’m going to enroll in flight school. It’s something that has always piqued my interest, and I have a few friends who are pilots. My physics background helps with aviation concepts, and I know that pilots can have very flexible schedules."
The flexibility means he can always play poker when he wants.
That poker bug brought him back to WPT Choctaw this month. Prior to the Main Event, he tweeted a tease at the World Poker Tour about going for back-to-back wins. What is that pressure like?
"I didn’t feel pressure to repeat at Choctaw but some pressure to attend -- not from the WPT or Choctaw but out of respect for the event. I felt that I should show up and take my shot. This weekend was actually inconvenient for me, but my parents were able to fly to Denver from Florida to watch my daughters (a 6-year-old girl and a 3-year-old boy). I wanted to come here as the defending champion and just be present."
Ajayi didn’t feel pressure to win again, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t want it.
He arrived late and got into the WPT Choctaw Main Event late on the second starting flight of the tournament and ran up a stack of chips. He finished that night 10th on the leaderboard of the 146 players remaining.
Day 2 was a long day. Ajayi spent the afternoon maintaining a top-ten stack but lost a big one just prior to the dinner break. He returned to the money bubble with a below-average stack but stayed patient. He was able to double his stack and finish that night in fifth place of the final 36 players.
Poker History on the Table
The pressure was on. Day 3 saw Ajayi stay in the top 10 as player after player departed. He stayed out of any major confrontations, but as three tables thinned to two, he wasn’t gaining any of the ground required to stay at the top.
With just 15 players remaining, a player doubled through Ajayi, leaving the latter with just 785,000, a shorter stack than he preferred. Shortly thereafter, he thought he found his place to double up with pocket sevens, but chip leader and longtime poker pro Chance Kornuth called with eights. The eights turned into a full house on the board and sent Ajayi out in 14th place.
Ajayi collected $31,000 for his efforts, but ask anyone in that position and he or she will express disappointment in getting so close to a final table and a place in poker history.
Hours after Ajayi left the tournament, the action played down to just six contenders. They stopped play, as the final six will resume the action on May 26 at the HyperX Esports Arena at the Luxor in Las Vegas. This puts the finalists on a stage with a chance for the public to watch and for the film crew to capture it all for television.
Each player is guaranteed $101,000 for sixth place, but there will be $486,600 awaiting the champion.
There may not be a WPT record on the line, but there is a lot of cash. In addition, chip leader Ray Quartomy will be at his fifth WPT final table, hoping for his first win. James Mackey and Chance Kornuth will each be at their third WPT final table, with Mackey the only one already a member of the WPT Champions Club. In fact, Mackey won the WPT Choctaw Main Event in 2016, so he has a chance to join Brian Altman as the only players to ever win the same exact tournament twice.
Kristen Foxen will be at her second WPT final table, and Steve Buckner and James Hundt will each attend their first.
Another WPT Choctaw is almost complete. With 787 entries, the event surpassed the $2M guarantee on the prize pool with an actual pool of $2,754,500. The top 100 players received payouts, and six players will compete for a WPT title in this event next week.