The World Poker Tour took its show to the high seas and it was Aram Oganyan who is the winner of the WPT Voyage Championship, a $5,000 buy-in event that attracted 263. He took the lion’s share of prize pool and the title after agreeing with Carlo Basurto and Austin Srur to a three-way chip stack chop, with the title the bonus that came with it on the line.
Aram Oganyan won a spot on the Mike Sexton WPT Champions Cup and $214,245, which includes a $25,000 seat in the 2024 WPT World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas that will be held in December.
“I feel amazing. This is so fun. This is unbelievable. I won some flips at the end, got some bluffs through, and here we are. We got our name on the trophy. RIP Mike, the legend,” Oganyan told the WPT following his victory.
A great 30 days
This is Oganyan’s first WPT title, and pushes his tournament winnings mark over $1 million — in the last 30 days. The win is coming off his best lifetime cash of $989,501 for finishing third in the $26,500 event at the Triton Poker Super High Roller Series in Korea March 7.
“I went to play poker at Triton three, four weeks ago. I had a great time there, and I did really well. I suppose I was feeling hot, and I just wanted to keep it going. And I was like, ‘What’s the next poker thing going on?’” he told the WPT.
It just so happened to be the WPT Voyage series on the Virgin cruise ship Valiant Lady, which left Miami March 31. The $5,000 championship was one of three big buy-in events that are taking place this week. The $25,000 high-roller event is scheduled to finish today, while the $10,000 starts.
“I almost didn’t even play this,” said Oganyan. “Had I done better on Monday online — because I had some Monday stuff online — (who knows?). And then luckily, I busted out, and here I am winning this. But I mainly play the bigger events. I just wanted to run it up, fire more bullets and get in there.”
Although this is the American’s first piece of major hardware, he’s come close as possible in two World Series of Poker bracelet events, finishing second in the $10,000 secret bounty tourney and a $3,000 event, both in the same week in 2023.
Oganyan’s name will be on the Mike Sexton Cup, but he wish he won the title purely, he said.
“I feel like it’s nice to win it, but I still don’t 100% feel like I actually won it, because of the flipping,” said Oganyan. “I feel like it would have been nice to play it out, and it would have felt more of like a real deal championship. But they wanted to chop it, and I always take someone asking to chop as a compliment, like, ‘Hey, I think you’re good at poker and I don’t think I have a big edge over you.’ So we just agreed to cut the variance down, flip for the championship and here we are.”
Oganyan hopes his run of good luck and excellent play continues in the one-day $10,000 event today.
“It’s a movie – not even a dream, it’s a movie. But yeah, great ending.”
Next up on the WPT Main Tour is the $3,500 buy-in WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown Championship April 19-23 with its $3 million guarantee.
| 1 | Aram Oganyan | $214,245 |
| 2 | Carlo Basurto | $202,885 |
| 3 | Austin Srur | $188,670 |
| 4 | Farid Jattin | $100,000 |
| 5 | Dan Sepiol | $75,000 |
| 6 | Romulo Dorea | $55,000 |
