Nearly one month ago, Gianluca Pace won the first Mid-States Poker Tour of the year. He took down that MSPT title at Sycuan Casino in Southern California. The tournament went well beyond its $300K guarantee when 460 entries pushed the prize pool to $444,700. Pace took home nearly $75K for his victory.
Since then, the MSPT has hosted two more series, each featuring a Main Event. One of them accumulated a prize pool more than double the guarantee, and the other nearly did the same. It’s been a good start to 2022 for this mid-major poker tour. Its emergence from pandemic uncertainties and disruptions has beat expectations.
Gallegos Dressed for Success
BillyRay Gallegos finished his initial flight in second place at the MSPT Bally’s Black Hawk Main Event. That Day 1A brought in 85 entries during a snowstorm, but Day 1B delivered 229 and Day 1C had 369 entries. And the resulting prize pool was more than double the $300K guarantee.
Day 2 had only 80 survivors return to the tables, though only 72 would be paid. They fairly quickly busted through the money bubble. And as the field reduced to just a few tables, players like Will Givens, Kevin Palmer, and Adrian Buckley busted. By the time they set the final table, Gallegos had been atop the leaderboard for some time. Vincent Moscati and Brady Bullard followed to take up the top spots.
Bullard ousted the seventh and eighth place finishers, but Chris Gfull took out Moscati in seventh place. Ronald Scott busted Sam Husar in sixth, and Bullard stepped back up to oust Jared Ingles in fifth. Gallegos ended Gfull’s tournament in fourth place.
The final three players chopped, which led Bullard to take third place and Scott second. That gave Gallegos the win. “It’s just my time, man,” he told PokerNews after the win. “I have always made Day 2, cashed, but this time I was like, today is different. I dressed up today! I’m usually that hoodie guy, sweatpants and everything, but today I was feeling good, so I dressed up.”
They knew it would be big; Vegas stops on the Mid-States Poker Tour usually are. So, the MSPT Venetian offered two starting days and a $500K guarantee. Day 1A brought in 385 entries but added another 642 on Day 1B. The resulting prize pool was just a few thousand from the $1M mark.
The first flight sent 43 players to Day 2, followed by 75 from Day 1B. Not for nothing, Ron West was in sixth place on the Day 1A leaderboard. Day 2 started just outside of the money bubble. When the payouts began, players like Joseph Cheong, Nipun Java, and Jason Wheeler were among them. As the field thinned, some of the notables to hit the rail included Jesse Lonis, Kyna England, Mitchell Halverson, Jamie Kerstetter, and Wendy Freedman. After Ky Nguyen departed in tenth place, the final nine took seats at one table with Haoyu Tang in the lead and Johnnie Moreno in second. Go Mori and Aaron Massey followed…but Ron West was second-last in chips.
On the first hand, short-stacked Anthony Danna pushed, as did West. Brendan Shiller called both, but West won the hand, ousting Danna and pulling in 5.55M chips. Suddenly, he was the new chipleader. Minutes later, Mori ousted Shiller in eighth place. Massey busted Sivertsen, and Moreno did the same to Tang. That put Moreno in the driver’s seat.
Massey and Mori both doubled through Trevino, but Trevino mounted a comeback by busting Mori soon after. West then sent Trevino out in fourth place. West had a dominating chip lead…until Moreno doubled through him. Moreno then busted Massey and took the lead into heads-up. The two exchanged the lead until West took the lead into a hand wherein Moreno moved all-in with pocket deuces. West called with K-Q and caught a queen on the flop that turned into a straight on the river. Moreno finished second.
West won the Poker Bowl on Super Bowl Sunday for his biggest cash to date. “I feel really good,” he said to PokerNews. “I’ve had some close calls in the last few years, had a hard time closing out and had some rough patches today but got lucky at the right time and stayed out of trouble at the right time.”
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