Aaron Johnson Wins WPT Prime Championship for $1,010,400
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The $1,100 buy-in WPT Prime Championship final table at Wynn Las Vegas on Saturday quickly reached heads-up play before an intense back-and-forth match ensued with Aaron Johnson coming out on top for $1,010,400 via a chop.
It took just 29 hands to go from six players to the final two. But it would take nearly three hours longer before Johnson finished off Fernando Martin Del Campo, both seeking their first-ever seven-figure tournament score.
Quick Final Table Until Heads-Up
Qing Liu, who nearly won World Poker Tour events in consecutive days in March 2021, entered the final table with the chip lead. Not only that, he was the only player who had what would be considered a "big stack" with 61 big blinds.
But it took little time for the leaderboard to make a complete 180, and for players to bust. Uri Foox, 18 hands into the session, went all in for 12 big blinds with A♥8♦, only to run into the bigger-stacked Martin Del Campo's K♠K♣. The best hand held up, sending Foox home in sixth place for $250,000.
Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Aaron Johnson | $1,010,400 |
| 2 | Fernando Martin Del Campo | $942,480 |
| 3 | Safiya Umerova | $575,000 |
| 4 | Qing Liu | $430,000 |
| 5 | Tim Burden | $325,000 |
| 6 | Uri Foox | $250,000 |
Tim Burden then moved all in a few hands later for seven big blinds with 10♠10♣ and was well ahead of Martin Del Campo's A♣8♥, but the board ran out 6♣5♦4♦Q♥7♥, giving Martin Del Campo a winning straight and Burden a fifth place exit for $325,000.
Martin Del Campo would soon after claim another victim, Liu in fourth place for $430,000, when ace-king bested ace-queen. Safiya Umerova, the last woman standing, on the very next hand, ran K♦10♠ into pocket aces and was out in third place for $575,000.
Johnson, despite eliminating Umerova, had a massive chip disadvantage when heads-up play began. But the tides would quickly turn when Johnson won nearly all of the first 10 hands of the match, one of which was worth around 30 big blinds. All of a sudden, the chip counts were nearly identical.
The tides would soon turn back the other way, with Martin Del Campo going on a heater, taking down pot after pot. Before long, he was sitting on 60 big blinds and had a 3:1 chip lead. Johnson then hit a straight and nearly doubled up against ace-high, which once again changed the complexity of the match.
Johnson then won two monster pots to turn the back-and-forth match into a lopsided affair. He finished off his opponent, nearly three hours into the contest, by winning a 60/40. Martin Del Campo, a Mexican poker player who had less than $20,000 in The Hendon Mob live tournament cashes before the WPT Prime Championship began, received $942,480 for second place after a heads-up chop deal was reached.
Martin Del Campo had the crowd behind him — and it was a boisterous rail. But Johnson, who now has over $3.5 million in career cashes, had all the chips in the end.
The 2025 WPT World Championship festival at Wynn wraps on Sunday with the conclusion of the $10,400 WPT World Championship Main Event, where Soheb Porbandarwala holds a massive chip lead in his quest to become a two-time WPT champion and win over $2.5 million. Johnson, as part of his title package, wins a seat into next year's season-ending championship event.
*Images courtesy of the World Poker Tour.
