Congratulations to Jared Jaffee, WPT bestbet Jacksonville Fall Poker Scramble Champion! ($252,749)

After almost four hours and just under 100 hands, the six-handed final table at the Season XII World Poker Tour bestbet Jacksonville Fall Poker Scramble has come to a rapid close with Jared Jaffee becoming the latest WPT champion. Jaffee breaks through for the win after having made two previous WPT final tables at the Southern Poker Championship in Season VIII (finishing fourth) and the Legends of Poker in Season IX (finishing fifth). 

When the final six players arrived today — survivors from the 358 total entrants — Jaffee enjoyed a huge chip lead with nearly a third of the chips in play. Here’s how things stood at the start:

Seat 1: Johnny Price — 940,000 (23 bb)
Seat 2: Jared Jaffee — 3,650,000 (91 bb)?
Seat 3: Blake Purvis — 1,400,000 (35 bb)
Seat 4: Margo Costa — 1,720,000 (43 bb)
Seat 5: Michael Horchoff — 1,525,000 (38 bb)?
Seat 6: Corrie Wunstel — 1,495,000 (37 bb) 

Jaffee would keep the lead for the first part of the afternoon, including taking the last of satellite winner Johnny Price’s chips on just the seventh hand of play when the latter ran [Ts][Td] into Jaffee’s [As][Ad] and failed to improve. Corrie Wunstel would be the next to go in fifth, also falling victim to Jaffee when his [Ac][Jd] couldn’t catch up to Jaffee’s [9h][9c].

Meanwhile the lone woman left in the event, Margo Costa, began the day playing aggressively and chipping up, but eventually fell back to the pack before getting knocked out by Blake Purvis to finish fourth. Costa’s last hand saw her raising all in on [Qs][4c][3s] flop with [Kh][Th] and being unable to move Black Purvis off his [7d][7c], with no help coming for her on the turn or river.

With that knockout Purvis had edged almost even with Jaffee while Michael Horchoff sat in a distant third with less than 10 big blinds. Soon Horchoff would lose the last of those chips to Purvis to take third when his [Kd][7c] couldn’t hold against Purvis’s [Jd][8d] as the board brought Purvis two pair and Horchoff none.

That set up heads-up play between Purvis and Jaffee. The pair started nearly dead even in chips — separated by less than one big blind, in fact — with Purvis having just snatched the chip lead away from Jaffee for the first time all day. But Jaffee would win the first two hands between them to edge in front again, and after 40 more hands had edged out to about a 2-to-1 chip lead when the final hand took place.

Whereas Jaffee had used pocket aces to score the first knockout of the final day, Purvis would find the same hand to be his undoing after getting all of his stack in on a [Jd][Jh][6h] flop with [Ah][As] versus Jaffee’s [4h][2h]. The turn was a harmless [6c], but the [Qh] on the river gave Jaffee a heart flush and the win.

Here’s how the payouts went today:

1st: Jared Jaffee — $252,749
2nd: Blake Purvis — $166,139
3rd: Michael Horchoff — $106,904
4th: Margo Costa — $79,114
5th: Corrie Wunstel — $59,335
6th: Johnny Price — $47,468

Congratulations to Jared Jaffee for his win, and kudos to all of those who made the final table in what has been another great WPT stop.

Thanks to the fine hosts at bestbet Jacksonville for their hospitality this week, and thanks as well to Joe Giron Photography for the great photos from today’s final table.

The next WPT stop is already underway — the WPT Caribbean — so click over to those live updates to read the next exciting chapter in the WPT Season XII story!