It was a big day for Michigan's Pat Steele, the Mid-States Poker Tour Season 4 Player of the Year. In the first MSPT Main Event of Season 11, he became just the fifth person to earn a spot in the MSPT Hall of Fame thanks to notching 25 career MSPT Main Event cashes to go along with his POY title.
Not content to stop there, Steele topped the 611-entry field to win the 2020 Cleveland Poker Open $1,100 Main Event title at JACK Cleveland, which was good for a $124,461 top prize.
Steele talked about his historic night after his win: "Words can't describe it, but to do two things in one night, finally get a win on the MSPT, it's pretty awesome. To be involved with the great Hall of Famers, it's cool to be apart of both of those groups."
Final Day Action
The final day of the Main Event saw 90 players return for Day 2. Some notables that were able to cash by finishing in the top 63 included defending champ Adam Friedman (16th), Karam Dhillon (21st), Chris Moon (26th) and Bobby Noel (46th).
Lydia Waltonbaugh was the first to exit the final table when she moved all in with ace-jack and could not improve against Jeff Mirelli, who held kings.
Ryan Rebman and Mark Wahba were next to exit the final table when Dan Pechnik held ace-king on an ace-high board and eliminated both of them on the same hand.
Doc Love also fell victim to Pechnik when his ace-eight couldn't improve against Pechnik’s queens.
Mirelli was next to bust in fifth place when he flopped trip kings and ran into Steele’s full house.
DJ Swartz had Pechnik dominated when they got the money in preflop. Penchnik was unable to hit one of his three outs and went home in fourth place.
Three-handed action lasted over two hours until a blind-versus-blind cooler saw Swartz’s pocket kings get cracked by the ace-queen of Steele to send him out the door in third place.
Heads-Up Play
Steele held the chip lead for the entirety of the heads-up match that lasted roughly 90 minutes. Steele and Ronnie Dowdy played a lot of small pots that saw Steele grind Dowdy down to a push or fold stack. Steele had a chance to lock up the title early when he shoved eight nine suited against Dowdy's king-jack. Steele flopped top pair and turned two pairs, but Dowdy rivered a flush to keep the heads up match going.
In the final hand, Steele had Dowdy dominated but found himself behind after the flop. Steele was able to improve to a pair of his own on the turn and found a brick on the river to make him the 2020 MSPT Cleveland Poker Open champion.
Season 11 of the MSPT continues January 29-February 4 at The Venetian in Las Vegas for the $1,100 buy-in, $1,000,000 guaranteed Poker Bowl IV. Click here for more details.