For the past week, the Mid-States Poker Tour (MSPT) has been at the Venetian in Las Vegas and hosting another five-day long $1,110 Main Event.
The tournament was headlined by a $1,000,000 guarantee and after three starting flights, the 1,741 total entries were enough to blow past that and generate a whopping $1,680,065 prize pool.
On Saturday, the final eight players took to the felt for Day 3 action, and after a quick three hours of play, it was Massachusetts native Ethan 'Rampage Poker' Yau coming out on top to win the $230,379 top prize and his first MSPT title.
"This feels awesome," Yau stated. "I really love the tournament grind and battling it out with some of the best poker players".
Yau, a poker vlogger who streamed his way to a WSOP.com gold bracelet on YouTube to thousands of viewers under his Rampage Poker moniker last year, considers himself more of a cash game player that hasn't played in many live tournaments. In fact, this was his first ever MSPT event and he didn't even know about the tour until a friend told him about it.
"Huge shoutout to 'JohnnieVibes'. He informed me about this tournament that I had no idea was even going on and I just want to give a big shout out to him," Yau explained.
As it turns out, Yau made the correct decision to play and had nothing but kind words about playing on the MSPT.
"It was a really tough field with a lot of really good players. I know not having as much experience in tournaments didn't help me but I had such a good time playing in this event and was able to run good when it counted. I will definitely be playing more of these in the future without a doubt".
Final Day Action
Nick Ahmadi entered the final day with a little over six big blinds but was able to get a pay jump after Thuy Nguyen departed eighth place after his ace-queen was unable to pair and Ahmadi exiting shortly after in seventh place.
Ilyas Muradi started the day with 40 bigs but took his exit before the end of the first level after his ace-six off suit was dominated by eventual champ Yau's suited ace-eight.
Chip counts shuffled around for almost two full levels before Robert Clark doubled with aces only to lose it all the very next hand holding a dominated king-ten off suit to Mickey Ma's ace-ten off.
After players returned from break, only a few hands were played before start of day chip leader Boris Kolev raised first to act only to call off the rest of his stack after Yau three-bet all in. Yau found himself in another position holding a dominating ace and sent Kolev packing in fourth place for $94,084.
After Kolev's departure, Jeremy Felicetti put in motion of an ICM chop discussion and the three players were able to agree upon a deal that allowed Yau take home the MSPT title along with a $230,379 first-place prize while Felicetti took home $163,641 for second, and Ma received a cool $160,000 for third.