The MSPT traveled to the beautiful mountainside at Bally's Casino in Black Hawk, Colorado, and hosted a 17-trophy Showdown Series which was headlined by its $1,110 buy-in, $300K GTD Main Event.
A total of 636 entries (119 from Day 1a; 240 from 1b; 377 from 1c) were tallied through three starting flights and generated a $615,420 prize pool.
On Sunday, 68 players returned for Day 2 action, and after roughly 12 hours of action, it was WSOP bracelet winner and poker coach Faraz Jaka who came out on top to win the $127,849 top prize along with his first MSPT hardware!
“I think I’ve play four tournaments here at Black Hawk and won two of them, so that's cool,” Jaka stated after his win.
“I feel like I should play more here because I live here,” Jaka added, “I typically play bigger buy-ins but since this was in my backyard and I had some students playing I thought I should pop in.”
Jaka continued, “I’m tempted to play more MSPT’s because so many of the people I coach, this is the prize point they play in, and I want to be familiar with the players here so I can better guide them, so maybe you’ll start seeing me at a few more of these.”
With almost 20 years of experience on the felt and over $8,000,000 in career lifetime earnings, the Jaka Coaching owner has not only taken his game to the next level, but also his students.
“This was a really cool moment,” Jaka went on to say, “I had three of my Jaka students here at the final table with me while another (Kaushik Kannan) won the final event, so that was awesome.”
For anyone unfamiliar with Jaka Coaching, it's a training website where they specialize in coaching live-game players on a weekly basis and for those interested in seeing any hands he played from this past weekend, he will be going over a training lesson revealing all his hands he played during this tournament with fellow MSPT champ and Jaka student Angela Jordison at Jakacoaching.com.
Day 2 Action
The final day came back with 65 players already in the money, so action kicked right into gear with eliminations starting like wildfire after which saw Carlos Romeros Bustillos, Jason Vanstrom, and newly inducted Hall of Famer Gerald Cunniff all falling in the first batch of eliminations.
Payouts continued to be heard across the room which saw two of the last four Black Hawk champ take exit as Mo Nuwwarah (54th Place - $2,308), & Nick Barksdale (50th Place - $2,308) fell in quick succession of each other while the MSPT’s top casher DJ Buckley got a few pay jumps before exiting in 45th Place for $2,432.
After nine previous champ came into the final day, only five remained until 2019 champ Steve Wilkie ran into some bad luck to take a much earlier exit than as hoped (34th Place - $2,744), while three-time Angela Jordison (22nd Place - $4,490), Alex Cruz (21st Place - $5,363), Justin Lynch (17th Place - $6,237), and last January’s third place finisher Antonio Vargas (14th Place $7,484) all departed setting the stage for the final table.
Final Table action
Once the final table was set, the two top stacks were almost even until an early crucial hand saw Jaka send Dianwei Sun home in ninth place, giving him a third of the chips in play.
After getting a pay jump, Mike Wheeler found a hand to roll with but got set-up by Michael Banducci to take an eighth place finish.
The fast paced action would continue with Jaka securing his second final table elimination after he wheeled out Ross Babel’s set of fives in seventh place while Kelly Mahana followed him to the payout desk in fifth place for $24,322.
Jaka would continue his elimination spree after sending short-stack Caden Coleman home in fifth place for 32,430 and then would tango with back-to-back Player of the Year Umut Ozturk which saw him roll over a dominating Big Slick to end the Hall of Famer’s run in fourth place for $43,032.
The exit marked Ozturk’s 13th final table appearance, tying him with fellow Hall of Famer Blake Bohn for fifth most all-time, and catapulted him to the top of the 2025 ICON standings.
With Jaka steam rolling majority of his final table opponents, Zach Gutierrez and Banducci needed to make some waves happen and did as Gutierrez was able to hook Banducci in third place for $58,000, leveling out the playing field for the heads-up duel against the top pro.
With the heads-up battle starting at an even match of 80 big blinds, it took a while for any significant pot to occur but after a few levels went by, Jaka was able to chip away at Gutierrez and send him home for a runner-up finish for $77,952 while Jaka secured his first MSPT trophy and payday good for $127,849!
For the first time since 2019, the MSPT is headed back to the Potawatomi Hotel & Casino in Milwaukee, WI, to host the second-ever 100 GRAND STACK FESTIVAL, January 28th - February 2nd and MSPT team will be on hand providing updates for the $500K GTD $1,110 Main Event so make sure to come back!