For the first time ever, the MSPT traveled to the Ameristar Casino St. Charles to host a ten-Gold Card event series, headlined by the $1,110 Season 17 Missouri Poker State Championship.
A total of 528 entries were tallied across three starting flights, generating a $512,160 prize pool.
On Sunday, 59 players returned for Day 2 action, and after roughly 10 hours of play, it was business owner/ tour grinder Mike Estes who battled his way through the challenging final day field en route to winning the $107,691 top prize and his second MSPT title!
“Feels phenomenal,” Estes stated after his win. “I’ve been working a ton on my game, filling in my leaks, and it seems to be working out.”
For Estes, who hails from Coralville, IA, the victory comes just nine months after he secured the 2025 Iowa Poker State Championship at his hometown casino, Riverside, for $153,551, and he marked his name in the record books after becoming the second player in tour history to win two different State Championships alongside MSPT Hall of Famer Umut Ozturk, an ICON in which he hopes to join in both the Player of the Year honors, and the coveted MSPT Hall of Fame.
“I came into the year with both Umut and Jake (Long) saying they weren’t going to chase POY this year, and I told Jess (Anderson) that I’m definitely going to chase it this year and I really needed this big finish to get me into the rankings.”
Estes continued, “I’ve been top five in the POY standings the last 3 out of 4 years, and I’m playing more events this year than I ever have because I really want to win it and today was a big step forward towards achieving that goal.”
With the win, Estes now sits second in the POY standings, and he secured his 31st MSPT Main Event cash along with his ninth MSPT Top 10 finish. He now has $588,480 in MSPT Earnings and boasted a #10 MSPT World Ranking prior to this win!
Estes is now nine Main Event cashes and a MAJOR win away from joining the coveted MSPT Hall of Fame, and he has amassed almost $600,000 in MSPT career earnings, and his MSPT 10th place World Ranking is likely to improve when the system recalculates on Monday.
This win also earned him a 2nd Gold Card on the tour, and he has also secured himself a seat in the $3,500 MSPT Championship Rock ‘N’ Roll Poker Open (RRPO), which will be held at the Seminole Hard Rock in Hollywood, Florida, Nov. 18 – Dec. 2, boasting a $2,000,000 GTD Main Event!
Day 2 Action
The final day came back with all 59 players already in the money, so action kicked right into gear with Andros Ioakimides being the first body to drop, while MSPT Hall of Famer Umut Ozturk and Diamond Poker Championship runner-up Carlton Taylor were part of the first batches of eliminations.
The fast-paced action would continue with Kanat Ozturk (45th Place - $2,454), Jessica Anderson (40th Place - $2,454), WSOP bracelet winner Blair Hinkle (36th Place - $2,705), Justin Coliny (29th Place - $2,705), and Dalton Jones (27th Place - $3,106) all falling in quick succession of each other.
Six fomer champs were then left in contention for a second title, until Keith Heine (24th Place - $3,656) & Charlie Dawson (23rd Place - $3,656) fell back-to-back, followed by Season 16 Player of the Year Jake Long (20th Place - $4,308), MSPT Champ Chris Audrain (18th Place - $5,009), and Mike Estes (IL) (11th Place - $7,513) all fell before the final table.
Final Table Action
Once the final table was set, a few double-ups occurred before Saad Ghanem (WR #267) lost a battle of the blinds against Ryan Julius (WR #2,354) to become the first final table elimination, while Mark Lafata (WR #280) had the same happen to him against Brandon Butler (WR 2,628) to follow Ghanem to the payout desk. For Ghanem, this was his 19th MSPT Main Event Cash and 7th Top 10 Finish, now with $288,214 MSPT Earnings.
Unfortunately for Butler, he was next on the chopping block after his pair of aces was set up by MSPT Hall of Famer Gerald Cunniff’s (WR #10) lucky pair of sevens to fall in seventh place, while Delvonte Gathright (Not Ranked) lost a big race with a pair of tens to soon-to-be champ Estes ace-king, as he took home $20,536 for his sixth-place efforts.
The fast-paced action would continue with Julius getting aggressive with an ace-ten offsuit, only to run into Cunniff’s Big Slick to hit the payout desk in fifth place for $27,048.
With four players remaining, three of them were former champs looking for their second title, but Jeff Copeland’s (WR #19) hopes of becoming a two-time champ came to an end after he lost a race to Cunniff, ending his run in fourth-place for $36,064. For Copeland, this was his 19th MSPT Main Event Cash and his 3rd MSPT Top 10 Finish, earning $244,608 during his MSPT career.
After Copeland’s departure, Cunniff held a significant chip lead, but only held it for a few orbits before losing it to Estes after both players flopped top pair, and after a couple of levels of chip shuffling, he ended up taking a third-place finish for $48,837. Cunniff is a MSPT Hall of Famer with 37 MSPT Main Event Cashes and 9 MSPT Top 10 Finishes, now with $491,856 in MSPT Earnings and a #12 MSPT World Ranking!
The heads-up match saw Estes holding a sizeable chip advantage over Horace Ingram (Not Ranked), but he didn’t let that faze him as Ingram gave Estes a run for his money, but ultimately ended up being sent home in second place ($67,121) while Estes secured his second title to become the MSPT Season 17 Missouri Poker State Champion.
This wraps up our coverage of this year’s Missouri Poker State Championship but Season 17 of the MSPT continues as we head to north to Running Aces in Skol Country for the Minnesota Poker State Championship (April 7th -19th) and our reporting team will be on hand providing updates for the $500K GTD $1,110 Main Event so make sure to come back!