After 16 years of grinding on the poker tournament trail, Nick Yunis finally broke through and won his first major title in Florida.
Yunis is the winner of the $5,000 World Poker Tour bestbet Scramble Championship. He won $315,791 plus a $10,400 entry into the $10,400 WPT World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas this December, as well as a Golden Passport to the ClubWPT Gold $5 Million Invitational Freeroll.
Yunis, who was born in Chile but makes his home 355 miles south of Jacksonville in Coral Gables, was “over the moon.”
“I still can’t believe it. I’m like, ‘Am I dreaming?’ I’ve been playing for so long and I always wanted to accomplish this — a major title,” he the WPT. “I’m thankful to God, to my supporters, my family that’s watching. My wife couldn’t come because of the baby, but I know they are extremely happy for me and I’m just over the moon.”
Two starting flights attracted 361 entrants who generated a prize pool of $1,642,550. The top 46 finishers were paid.
This is Yunis’ largest lifetime cash. While he’s won plenty of events, he never took home a WPT title or a World Series of Poker bracelet. He came close several times, including a runner-up finish in a $1,500 WSOP Eight Game Mix event in 2022 where he started heads-up play with a 4-1 chip advantage, but never sealed the deal.
It has not been easy for the 40-year-old.
“It’s very hard,” Yunis told WPT’s Tim Fiorvanti. “I think that most poker players, you know, have all kinds of superstitions, and it’s just hard because tournaments are so emotional. You get so deep, you put in so many hours. You’re tired, you’re emotional, and then you take a bad beat. When that happens over and over and over again, you start to think it’s never gonna happen, and it’s just the nature of the beast. It’s a really tough game in that sense.”
He got some great advice from friend Farrid Jattin that helped him at the final table.
“He actually told me, ‘Disconnect yourself from the result completely. Just try to be in the zone. Play your game, no matter what happens. You should be proud of yourself.’ And that, I think, was very key for me, you know, you just have to not think about the result, because at the end of the day, that’s just anxiety. You don’t need that while you’re trying to perform,” Yunis said.
Song nearly double-dips
While Yunis was going for his first WPT title, two players at the final table were trying to add more. Three-time WPT champ Eric Afriat stalled in third, which left Yunis facing Yunkyu Song heads-up. Song, a relative newcomer to live tournament poker, just won his first WPT major in Montreal last month.
Like Yunis, the $252,059 prize for second was Song’s best lifetime cash — but his top seven cashes all came in 2024 and includes a third-place finish in a $2,000 WSOP bracelet event where he finished third for $197,443. His consecutive deep runs vaulted Song to the top of WPT’s Player of the Year leaderboard, just 450 points in front of Afriat.
Rounding out the top six were Joe Jordan ( $123,000), Nick Funaro ($93,000), and Dion Jagroo ($71,000). Other notable players who made the money include WPT Commentator and Champion Tony Dunst (sixteenth), Joe McKeehen (seventeenth), WPT Champion Vitalijs Zavorotnijs (twenty-second), WPT Champion Josh Reichard WSOP Circuit guru (thirtieth), and Dan Stavila (thirty-fourth).
“Thank you to all the players that came out to bestbet Jacksonville, as well as the staff and dealers that helped put on such a fun event,” said WPT CEO Adam Pliska. “Nick made his mark, and we happily welcome him to the WPT Champions Club and look forward to seeing him next month at the WPT World Championship.”
