Matt Kirby Wins Park Fall Poker Classic For $84,502

Matt Kirby has just triumphed at the 2014 Canterbury Park Fall Poker Classic, after overcoming a field of 362 players over three days on his way to claiming the victory, and collecting the $84,502 first place prize.
The $1,000 buy-in Main Event was held at the Canterbury Park Card Club in Minnesota, and attracted enough players to create a prize pool worth $350,173. The 30-year-old poker pro was then able to progress all the way through to the final table where he bested such players as Andrew Dick, Tony Hartmann, Thao Thiem and Jonathan Hanner, before eventually defeating Chris Pehler heads-up to claim the title.
Final Table Results:
1 Matt Kirby    $84,502
2 Chris Pehler    $47,183
3 Hendrickson   $34,155
4 Andrew Dick    $26,408
5 Jim Boone    $22,007
6 Mark Abboud    $18,486
7 Tony Hartmann    $14,084
8 Rich Alsup    $10,563
9 Thao Thiem    $8,803
10 Jon Hanner    $7,042
The Fall Poker Classic consisted of 34 events spread out between October 4th and 20th. Matt Kirby subsequently got off to the best possible start in the series by taking down Event 1: $340 No-Limit Hold’em event, having defeated a field of 417 players to win the top prize of $28,516. In addition, Kirby finished 6th at Event 9:  $550 NLHE for $5,354, and 6th at Event 13: $550 NLHE Six Max for $4,540, before scooping Event 17: $1,000 Main Event for $84,502, bringing his total prize money won at the 2014 Fall Poker Classic to $122,912.
Matt Kirby’s performance this year, in which he reached four final tables, has been hailed as one of the most dominating runs the series has yet seen, and after the Fall Poker Classic drew to a close, Kirby was honoured with the title of King of the Classic, and awarded a Cruise Prize Package.
In addition to live tournament earnings of $742,779, Kirby also has two MSPT titles to his name, and talking about how he first got hooked on poker, the Minnesota pro explained: “I realized I needed to get better, I didn’t have friends who played online or for a living, so I turned to books. First I read Harrington on Hold’em. My game got quite a bit better and I started seeing some results. The first tournament I ever won was at a small smoky bar called Charlie Brown’s which was a $100 buy-in with about 55 players, which wasn’t much, but it got me hooked.”