Satish Thakur Wins 2017 MSPT Indiana
August 24, 2017 11:44 amThe 2017 MSPT Indiana State Poker Championship was held at the Tropicana Evansville, with 320 players paying its $1,100 entry fee to create a prize pool of $308,893. Two long days of action later, and it was Satish Thakur who would eventually triumph over his competitors, including Allan Hedin heads-up, to claim the MSPT trophy, and its $71,047 top prize.
Commenting upon his impressive victory, and the final showdown against “Big” Al Hedin, the 32-year-old IT programmer stated: “Feeling great, man, it’s a dream. I drove all the way from Michigan. I play the MSPT a lot, especially at FireKeepers/ I was really short at one point, [Big Al] had a huge chip stack, but patience paid off.”
The tournament offered 36 money spots, and amongst the notable players seeing a return on their investment was Nick Jivkov in 29th ($2,162), Adam Thomas in 27th ($2,255), Mike Reick in 24th ($2,471), Bob Castoire in 19th ($3,243), and Kevin Brenner in 11th ($5,220).
At the final table, Satish Thakur (Q-Q) subsequently took care of Terrence Esparza (K-Q) in 9th, before “Big” Al Hedin went into overdrive by eliminating Kurt Jewell in 6th, followed by Charles Payne (5th), Donnie Phan (4th), and John Mingus (3rd) to take a 3-1 chip advantage over Satish Thakur into heads-up play.
There was to be noquick resolution to the proceedings, though, and a further three hours of play would ensue before Al Hedin, now behind in chips, would go all-in holding J-7 on a J-9-10 flop. Unfortunately for him, Thakur (J-10) had made two pair, and with a harmless 6 and 3 falling on turn and river, Hedin finished the runner-up for $43,864, while top honors went to Thakur. When asked how he intended to celebrate his victory, Thakur said:
“I have my wife, she will be coming here from India this weekend.”
Final Table Results:
1: Satish Thakur $71,047
2: “Big” Al Hedin $43,864
3: John Mingus $31,817
4: Donnie Phan $23,476
5: Charles Payne $17,607
6: Kurt Jewell $13,592
7: Craig Welko $10,503
8: Ross Bryant $8,340
9: Terrence Esparza $6,456
10: Aaron Gamino $5,220