USOP Grand Finale: Benjamin Leblond Wins Superstar Challenge

It took over six hours of poker to determine the next Superstar Challenge champion, and it was Canadian pro Benjamin Leblond who ended up with all the chips to earn that prestigious title. Leblond was awarded a USOP Elite trophy and a monster payout of VND 3.23 Billion (~USD 127,000).

The final hand added so much more drama excitement in the way the Superstar Challenge wrapped up. Xiangyu Yu flopped two pair queens and jacks while the poker gods gave Leblond a better two pair. This cash marks Leblond’s biggest career payout and brings his total live earnings to over USD 650,000, 

Read up on the action via the SMP Live Updates.

USOP Grand Finale – Superstar Challenge

The USOP Grand Finale has outdone itself yet again with the Superstar Challenge event held at the Grand Ballroom of Pullman Grand Hotel in Hai Phong, Vietnam.  127 entries paid VND 120 Million (~USD 4,700) to build a prize pool of VND 13,012,420,000 (~USD 513,000), surpassing the original VND 3 Billion guarantee by over four times. That’s yet another guaranteed event in this series whose guarantee was surpassed to create a bigger prize pool. 

Only 19 contenders made it to the Day 2 Final with each one guaranteed an ITM payout of VND 210,000,000 (~USD 8,200). By the time the final table was formed, Leo Du Boisbaudry had a commanding chip leader stack, but a mistimed all-in move against Xiangyu Yu’s made set was like banging one’s head on a brick wall.

Du Boisbaudry ended up finishing in third place. This was Du Boisbaudry’s 8th career USOP cash with seven of those coming from the USOP Hai Phong series held last September 2024. If that’s a trend, then we can expect more cashes from him in this series.

Julian Warhurst came into the final table near the bottom and somehow managed to play smart to end with a 4th place finish. Piet Pate also timed his all-in a bit wrong to end up as the 5th place finisher. 

William Jia also time his all-in wrong, running into the aces of Leblond to exit at 6th place. Hari Varma found out the anti-climactic way that he was eliminated when the dealer discovered Varma’s stack of chips was covered by Leblonde’s chips when they counted  at the end of the hand. Varma busted out at 7th, making his 5th final table appearance since August 2024.

Eighth placer Anton Lu was just unlucky that his pocket  kings was outdrawn by an ace that sought a three-outer. Jon-Peter Rounce-Sue had the chip lead at one point, but had some bad runs to be the first victim at the final table for 9th place.

Check out these useful links for more on this event:

USOP Grand Finale – Schedule
USOP Grand Finale- Photos