The MSPT returned to beautiful Venetian Resort in Las Vegas for the third time this season, but the first as MAJOR Series of Poker - The Tour, to host the inaugural Heart Poker Championship!
A total of 1,051 entries were tallied after three starting flights and on Sunday, just seven players returned to action for the final day in hopes of securing the top prize from the $1,500,000 prize pool.
When the dust finally settled, it was none other than MSPT Hall of Famer Josh Reichard who seized the moment to capture the first-ever MSPT MAJOR Heart Poker Championship trophy, and his second tittle since 2013.
“Feels good”, Reichard stated after his win, “I’m in a group chat with some friends who just last week were sending pictures of like, basically when they were infants, saying oh, I was this age when Josh won his last MSPT.. so maybe it gave me a little motivation or maybe I just ran good.. who knows but it definitely feels nice to close one out because it has been a while.”
While it may have been a while since Reichard’s last MSPT win, it was definitely worth the wait as the victory not only notched him a MAJOR win undeath his belt, but it also catapulted him into second place in this year's Player of the Year standings while also putting him atop the 2025 ICON standings as well.
“It’s really cool”, Reichard went on to say, “with the whole rebrand and everything being new, getting the 1.5x POY points really helps me against Jakey Longo because I plan on playing a lot.”
The victory not only helped Reichard out for this season alone, but on the tour as well as his $811,318 career earnings put him fourth on the leaderboard while also bumping him up into the third spot on the GOAT rankings.
Day 3 Action
Once the final players got mic’d up for action, things kicked right into gear with chips shuffling around the table which found two-time bracelet winner Antonio Galiana finding a pair of sevens to roll with only to lose a race to Brian Luo’s king-nine off suit to become the first elimination of the day.
After Galiana hit the rail, short stack Hugo Girard found a suited ace of clubs to risk his remaining stack with on the button only to have Jessica Vierling roll over a dominating suited ace of hearts from the big blind, and he didn’t find any help from the runout as he departed in sixth place for $55,170.
After getting a couple of ladder-up’s Artem Metalidi then followed Girard out the door in fifth place after he failed to hit live suited connectors against Luo.
From that point, Korea’s Min Sung Lee was in survival mode hovering at the bottom of the chip counts, and he was able to find a double-up before ultimately taking a to fourth place finish for $92,049.
After Lee’s departure, Reichard started gaining traction, scooping three and four-bet pots to take the chip lead which grew massively after he clashed with Luo as his lucky pair of sevens sent him out the door for a third place finish for $120,597.
The heads-up match between Reichard and Vierling started with him holding over ninety percent of the chips in play and the duel on lasted a few hands before he sent her out the door for a second-place finish for $159,480 while Reichard walked away with the inaugural championship and his second career MSPT title.
This concludes our coverage for the inaugural Heart Poker Championship but stay tuned here as coverage of $1,000,000 GTD double-header begins tomorrow!