Roger Teska wins first event of WPT season XVIII

World Poker Tour Sold To Chinese Company For $35 Million

The 18th season of the World Poker Tour kicked off last week with the premiere event of the new season – the WPT Garden Poker Festival.

Played at the Gardens Casino in Los Alamito California, the $5,000 main event ended up with a 373-player field. That led to a $1,753,100 prize pool.

The bulk of that went to Roger Teska. The 34-year-old native of Bloomington, Indiana was the last man standing to cash $368,475. That followed a $2 million cash Teska posted in last year’s partypoker Caribbean Poker Tour to bump his lifetime live-poker earnings to just under $3.3 million.

It came down to Teska and Laszlo Molnar heads-up for the tournament title. When heads-up play began Teska had a large hole to crawl out of facing a near 5-to-1 chip deficit.

He began chipping away at Molnar’s stack immediately with a double up on the first hand of heads-up. Teska was all-in with Qh-Js versus Molnar’s Ah-Qd and took down the pot with a straight after the board showed Ad-10d-4s-Kh-10c.

One of the key hands happened late in the tournament after Teska hit quad sevens to take a monster pot from Molnar. After that hand Molnar was down to 1.7 million chips, or eight big blinds.

On the final hand of the tournament Molnar pushed all-in preflop and Teska called. Molnar showed Kc-Qc and trailed Teska who showed Ah-6c. The flop was Jc-4d-9h, giving Molnar a straight draw.

The turn provided more outs for Molnar when the 3c fell giving him an additional flush draw. Any King, Queen, Ten or Club would have given Molnar the hand, but it was not to be as the 2s fell on the river.

Other news:   WSOP.com reportedly expanding player pool to Michigan

For second place Molnar cashed $235,615.

Along with his own big cash and first WPT title Teska also received a 2019 BMW X1 for the win and a $15,000 seat in the WPT Tournament of Champions at the end of the season.


Poker News
Eliot Hudon wins WPT World Championship
23 Dec 2022
Eliot Hudon has won the largest World Poker Tour event in series history after taking down the WPT World Championship Main Event. The WPT World Championship concluded at Wynn Las Vegas on Tuesday after a WPT record 2,960 players originally bought in for $10,400. That record-setting player pool led to a record-setting $29 million prize
Phil Ivey Becomes Virtue Poker Ambassador
14 Nov 2022
Poker legend Phil Ivey’s return to the mainstream poker world continues as he has been named the latest World Poker Tour Ambassador. Ivey has had success at WPT events in the past, getting his name etched on the Mike Sexton WPT Champions Cup by winning the 2008 WPT L.A. Poker Classic. Ivey has made it
World Poker Tour Sold To Chinese Company For $35 Million
20 Jan 2021
The World Poker Tour has been sold to Element Partners, LLC for a reported $78 million. Element Partners acquired the WPT from Allied Esports Entertainment in a deal that was officially announced on Tuesday. As part of the deal Element Partners will pay Allied Esports $68,250,000 upfront, and the remaining $10 million will be paid
World Poker Tour Sold To Chinese Company For $35 Million
17 Sep 2020
The 2020 World Poker Tour World Online Championship Main Event concluded earlier this week and Phillip Mighall was the last man standing. The $10,300 Main Event drew 1,011 entries and had a $10,110,000 prize pool, which topped the $10 million guarantee. The top 135 players finished in the money, with Mighall claiming the top prize