The Venetian

MSPT kicked off its 16th season at the beautiful Venetian Resort in Las Vegas with a $1,100 buy-in, $300K GTD Main Event!.

A total of 431 entries (70 from Day 1a; 126 from 1b; 235 from 1c) were tallied and on Sunday, 48 players returned to Day 2 action to take their stab at the $415,915 prize pool.

Of those 48 players, only one was able to claim the top spot and that was local Bonanza High School math teacher Carson Richards who navigated his way through the tough field to claim the $76,054 first place prize along with his first MSPT title!

“It feels really good,” Richards stated after his victory, “I used to just play mostly as a hobby, but I got into it more after I finished second in a bracelet event last summer for a big score so I’ve been playing a lot more.”

The big score Richards was referring to was in Event #5 $1,000 Mystery Millions, in which he took home a cool $536,080 for his runner-up finish, but his close finishes poised him for a victory against an incredibly tough final table opponents.

“Pro after pro after pro,” Richards answered when being asked about his thoughts on his opponents at the final table which included multiple bracelet winners.

“It was a very tough final table,” Richards added in his final comments, “Being able to come out on top of this one and winning a trophy, feels amazing.”

MSPT Venetian Season 16 Opener Final Table Results

Day 2 Action

The final day came back with 48 players already in the money, so action kicked right into gear with short stack Steven Merwin being eliminated in the first hand of the day while Jesse Kertland followed him to the payout cage shortly after.

After Kertland hit the deck, a flurry of “payouts” could be heard throughout the room, as handfuls of players were walking to the payout table which included the likes of Anthony Rocco (45^th Place – $2,356), MSPT champs Jeff Platt (37^th Place - $2,356), four-time bracelet winner Jeff Madsen (22^nd Place – $3,548), MSPT Hall of Famers Rodger Johnson (18^th Place - $4,174) & Aaron Massey (11^th Place - $7,334), and bracelet winner Darren Rabinowitz (10^th Place - $7,334).

Final Table Action

Once the final table was set, start-of-day chip leader Richards found himself with a sizeable chip lead over the rest after he rivered a straight to beat Massey’s flopped set of tens, and quickly added more to his stack after he made John Lewis the first final table elimination.

Richards would then follow with a quick elimination of Jeff Yarchever in a battle of the blinds while Louis Haeick followed him to the payout cage in seventh place.

A full level of poker was played before the next body would fall as Johnson Nguyen lost a race against Richards to take a sixth place departure and Richards followed that with the elimination of Bojan Gledovic in fifth place for $23,941.

Poker personality Jamie Kerstetter was able to catch a few double-ups before ultimately being tripped up in fourth place for $31,422 by two-time bracelet winner Josh Remitio.

Remitio would then follow in Kerstetter’s footsteps as he won a race to double through Richards only to lose to another to him to take home a third place finish for $41,714.

Richards final table reign would continue in the heads-up battle with almost evenly stack sizes between the two, but he went toe-to-toe with Leng in the duel and ended up sending the three-time bracelet winner home in a cooler after he flopped the straight holding five-two off against Leng’s flopped top two-pair.

“Oh, my dad’s going to love this,” Richards said as stood to take a picture of the final hand, “I was talking to my dad earlier and he told me to make sure I play the five-deuce.”

This concludes our coverage for this event, but Season 16 of the MSPT continues this week as we head San Diego's Sycuan Casino for the first-ever 100 GRAND STACK Series, January 9th - 20^th, which is headlined by the $1,110 buy-in, 300K GTD Main Event and as always, that will be reported by our live reporting team starting Friday, January 17^th so make sure to tune in!