Las Vegas grinder Craig Mason has won the WPT Venetian Las Vegas Fall Championship, taking down the $5,000 buy-in World Poker Tour main event for $358,800 after a three-way deal with Matt Affleck and Daniyal Gheba. It is Mason's first WPT title, and it comes with a seat in next month's $10,400 WPT World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas.
"It means everything," Mason told WPT reporters after the final hand. "I'm trying not to cry right now, but this is a dream."
The WPT Venetian win caps a strong autumn for a player who has spent years as a fixture on the Las Vegas tournament circuit. It also arrives in an event that made a small piece of history: according to Card Player, this was the first WPT main event on US soil to use slide dealing, after The Venetian switched away from traditional pitch dealing earlier this fall.
The Numbers: 510 Entries Smash the $2M Guarantee
The Fall Championship ran across three starting flights before the fields combined. In total, 510 entries turned up, pushing the prize pool $346,000 past its $2 million guarantee. The top 64 finishers were paid.
That turnout is worth pausing on. A $5,000 buy-in with a $2 million guarantee needs 400-plus entries just to break even once rake and fees are taken into account, so a 510-entry field is a clear sign that mid-stakes live tournament demand in Las Vegas remains healthy outside the summer WSOP window. With the WPT World Championship at Wynn arriving in December, many players also treated the Venetian as a warm-up stop.
Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Payout |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Craig Mason | $358,800* |
| 2 | Matt Affleck | $301,000* |
| 3 | Daniyal Gheba | $276,000* |
| 4 | Nicholas Pupillo | $155,000 |
| 5 | Nick Yunis | $117,000 |
| 6 | Anthony Piacquadio | $88,000 |
| 7 | Mohammad Pourmandi | $67,000 |
| 8 | Sonny Lee | $52,500 |
| 9 | Raman Afanasenka | $45,000 |
*Reflects a three-way deal.
The original pay jumps at three-handed were $446,800, $280,000 and $209,000. The deal flattened those to $358,800, $301,000 and $276,000, which meant Mason gave up $88,000 of first-place money in exchange for locking up a much larger guaranteed figure. Gheba, who was eventually eliminated third, gained $67,000 relative to the standard payout, a reminder of why short and middle stacks so often push for deals. If you want to understand the math behind those negotiations, our guide to ICM explains how chip stacks translate into real-money equity.
How Mason Won It
Mason did not have an easy road. He entered the final table fifth in chips, barely ahead of Anthony Piacquadio, and needed roughly eight hours to close it out.
Early Momentum
The first big swing came against Piacquadio. Mason's pocket jacks were up against Piacquadio's ace-king preflop, and a king-high flop gave Mason a full house. The board held and Piacquadio departed sixth for $88,000.
Not everything went Mason's way. He lost a 60/40 race to Matt Affleck that doubled Affleck into one of the biggest stacks, but he bounced back against Nick Yunis. Mason raised with pocket kings, Yunis three-bet with jack-ten suited as the short stack, and when the chips went in Mason's overpair held. Yunis, who won the WPT bestbet Scramble Championship in 2024, fell in fifth for $117,000.
Pupillo and Gheba Fall
Mason's next key pot came from behind. Holding ten-eight suited against Nicholas Pupillo's king-four suited in a blind-versus-blind confrontation, Mason took the lead on an ace-high flop and held to eliminate the bracelet winner in fourth for $155,000. Pupillo's lifetime earnings exceed $7.5 million.
Three-handed play was a seesaw. Mason held a 2-to-1 chip lead at one stage before Affleck and Gheba closed the gap, and Gheba eventually seized a big lead of his own. The pivotal hand saw Mason's queen-eight suited flop queens and eights against Gheba's jack-eight, sending Gheba out third for $276,000. Before that, both players had made flushes in a separate pot where Mason's ace-queen suited came out on top.
Heads-Up Against Affleck
Mason began heads-up with nearly a 2-to-1 advantage, but Affleck dominated the opening exchanges and took the lead. After about 20 hands, Affleck moved all in on a 9-6-3 flop holding ace-queen. Mason called with jack-nine for top pair, a flush-completing turn and a blank river kept him in front, and the title was his.
Who Is Craig Mason?
Mason is a Las Vegas tournament regular with a WSOP Circuit title and a PGT win already on his resume. The Hendon Mob lists more than $3.5 million in live tournament cashes, while Card Player puts his lifetime total close to $4.1 million after this score.
The $358,800 is his second-largest career cash. His biggest remains a $1.2 million runner-up finish in the 2018 Caribbean Poker Party main event. The win added 1,680 Card Player Player of the Year points, bringing him to 2,547 across five final tables in 2026 and into the top 150 of the overall standings. His name will also be engraved on the Mike Sexton WPT Champions Cup.
Affleck and Gheba Keep Rolling
For Matt Affleck, $301,000 is his second-largest score and pushes his lifetime earnings to nearly $4.7 million. Many fans still remember his 15th-place finish in the 2010 WSOP Main Event, when his aces were cracked by Jonathan Duhamel's jacks in one of the most replayed hands of that era. Sixteen years later, he remains a dangerous live tournament player.
Daniyal Gheba may be the hottest player on the circuit right now. The bracelet winner has cashed 10 times since August 11, making eight final tables and banking more than $1,042,000 in that span. This result moves him into the top 30 of the 2026 POY race.
A Deep Field Packed With Names
The final nine was only part of the story. The later stages featured a long list of well-known pros:
- Keith Lehr finished 10th, just missing the final table.
- Cherish Andrews placed 13th.
- Sam Soverel (17th) and Andrew Ostapchenko (18th) ran deep.
- Phil Hellmuth busted in 20th, again falling short of a first WPT title.
- Shannon Shorr (21st), Joe McKeehen (22nd) and Jesse Lonis (27th) also cashed.
Hellmuth's exit got plenty of attention, and we covered it in detail separately: he remains without a WPT main event title despite his record WSOP bracelet haul.
Slide Dealing Comes to the WPT
One subplot that will matter beyond this single event is the dealing method. The Venetian switched to slide dealing earlier this fall, and the Fall Championship became the first US WPT main event played under it. Instead of pitching cards across the felt, dealers slide each card to the player, a method common in parts of Europe and Asia.
Supporters argue it reduces exposed cards and misdeals, particularly at full tables where pitched cards can flip over. Critics say it is slower, though that is a hand-per-hour concern that matters more in cash games than in a structured tournament. Whatever the view, the Venetian has now shown it works at WPT scale, and other rooms will be watching.
What This Means for Players
There are three practical takeaways from Mason's run.
First, deals are a skill. The three-way chop shows how much money moves at a final table before a single card is dealt. Mason gave up first-place upside; Gheba gained significantly. Knowing your ICM equity before you sit down to negotiate is essential, and our poker strategy hub covers the basics.
Second, mid-stakes live poker is booming. A 510-entry field at $5,000 shows serious demand. If you want to reach events like this without paying full price, satellites are the answer. Many of the sites in our US poker sites rankings run regular satellites and big-field online tournaments that build the skills you need for deep live runs.
Third, short stacks can win. Mason was fifth of nine to start the day. Picking spots, winning key flips and pressuring the middle stacks turned that into a title.
Next Up: The WPT World Championship
Mason now heads to Wynn Las Vegas for the $10,400 WPT World Championship in December, one of the biggest tournaments of the calendar. He will do so with momentum, a freerolled seat and a first WPT trophy.
If you are planning to play online qualifiers, check out our guide to real money poker sites, and sharpen your late-stage game with our poker strategy hub before the holiday season.