John Hayes Wins Mid-States Poker Tour Northern Lights

John Hayes has won the Mid-States Poker Tour Northern Lights, after defeating a field of 160 players over two days to capture the title, and collect the $43,473 first place prize. Commenting later on his remarkable victory, Hayes said: “It felt really good to take down an MSPT event. I have played quite a few and have had some good runs, but hadn’t been able to walk away with one. I’m not going to take this bracelet off for a while.”
The poker pro had previously won a massive $2,419,359 playing online under the screen name JohnnyGstaks, but after “Black Friday” in the US had to hit the brick-and-mortar casinos to continue plying his trade. It seems Hayes has managed that transition successfully, and now boasts $229,705 in live tournament earnings, $195,342 of which has come since 2012.
John Hayes was in great form at the $1k Main Event held at the Northern Lights Casino in Walker, Minnesota, and cruised through Day 1 before entering Sunday’s final day of action third overall in chips. Getting busy straight away, John Hayes then mixed it up with the chip leader Christian Pham, who tank-folded to Haye’s five-bet preflop shove, before the duo tangled once more later with Hayes (K-Q) hitting a K against Pham’s A-Q to
add further to his stack.
To his credit, a depleted Pham still managed to make it through to the final table, where he eventually finished in 8th place for $5,339. As the tournament then progressed to three-handed play, a dramatic last hand saw Bill Romer (A-Q), Reg Powell (A-5) and John Hayes (5-2) all-in on a 3-2-4 flop, only for a 5 and 2 to fall on turn and river to make Hayes a full-house and thus hand him the tournament.
The final table payouts were as follows:
1 John Hayes      $43,473
2 Reg Powell      $24,405
3 Bill Romer      $15,253
4 Brett Kuznia      $11,288
5 Stevermer       $9,152
6 Jason Bender      $6,864
7 Mario Filippi      $6,101
8 Christian Pham  $5,339
9 Clarence Warner $4,576