On Monday night, Korey Payne became the newest champion on the Mid-States Poker Tour (MSPT) after besting a field of 1,239 entries to take home the top prize of $327,773 in the MSPT Venetian. Casino Poker Tournaments. Currently The Venetian Poker Room is open daily from 9:00 a.m. Starting Friday September 18th, the Poker Room will remain open until 3:00 a.m. In an effort to provide our guests with a poker experience they know and love in a safe environment, The Venetian Poker Room will begin offering eight. The Venetian poker room is the first in Las Vegas to put multitable tournaments back on the menu. The casino will host $250 buy-in tournaments in a shootout format at 11:10 a.m. Friday and Saturday.

It took almost 16 hours on Sunday at the 2020 Mid-States Poker Tour (MSPT) Venetian $1,100 Main Event for a champion to be crowned and the first-place prize of $201,529 awarded. That champion was young up-and-comer Landon Tice, who did so for his first career score in the live realm of poker and in what was only his third live poker tournament. Tice outlasted a field of 1,123 entries in doing so, a figure that generated a total prize pool of more than $1 million.

Prior to this tournament, the 21-year-old from Boca Raton, Florida had just three online tournament cashes on his resume from this past summer: Tice got his start in poker by playing micro-stakes cash games online and has worked his way up, a journey highlighted by a mentor of sorts in Joey Ingram. Tice can now add an MSPT championship to his list of accomplishments.

'It feels good, you know,' said Tice after the tournament was over. 'It feels so good!'

Tice won after a hard-fought heads-up battle against Brandon Lombardo that capped off a four-hour-long final table. Lombardo entered the match as a three-to-one underdog and held his ground, ultimately finding a double and taking the chip lead for a short time. However, nearly-even stacks went in when Tice made two pair on the river and he doubled to shorted Lombardo, who called Tice's shove with top pair.

MSPT Venetian Final Table Results

Place	Player	Prize
1	Landon Tice	$201,529
2	Brandon Lombardo	$135,074
3	Jesse Vilchez	$91,502
4	Sara Stohler	$62,091
5	Abraham Hichman	$40,304
6	Byung Shin	$30,501
7	David Larson	$22,876
8	Andrew Rodgers	$17,429

Day 2 Action

Of the 1,123 entries logged across two starting flights, 145 players returned Sunday morning for the start of Day 2. Seventeen eliminations occurred within the first level of play, leaving the 128 that remained all set to make it into the money. From there, the pace of eliminations remained steady and the field rapidly saw itself shrink. Just 45 players remained by the second break of the day, and two hours later, the final three tables had been reached with 24 left in contention.

Plenty of notables were still in at that time, including Nick Pupillo, Frank Funaro, Jason Seitz, and Sean Yu. Also still in was 2019 MSPT Player of the Year Mike Shin, and all of them fell short of reaching the final table with Shin being eliminated in ninth place to burst the final table bubble.

Several short stacks were just hanging on at that time, including the likes of David Larson, who had been below one big blind with 15 players remaining. Andrew Rodgers became the first casualty of the final table, and Larson followed in his steps after being unable to improve with king-ten against the pocket queens of Byung Shin. One hand later, Shin found his newly-padded stack all in with pocket nines against the ace-king of Tice, who hit a king on the flop to send Shin packing in sixth.

Fifteen minutes later, Tice knocked out Abraham Hichman in fifth, and play slowed from there. Two full levels of four-handed play passed and eventually Sara Stohler was the next one to find the rail, also falling to Tice. Tice's work was not done, as he also knocked out Jesse Vilchez in third place to take an aforementioned three-to-one chip lead into his heads-up match with eventual runner-up Lombardo.

Lombardo gave Tice a run for his money, staying afloat and trading pots for nearly a full level before finding a double after out-kicking Tice with a pair of eights. A brief talk of chopping arose, but proposed figures worked for neither party and play resumed. A handful of minutes later, it was all over after Tice got a double of his own and finished the job from there.

Tice is not looking at letting up on the grind anytime soon, and is expected to be seen back at the Venetian for next weekend's $1,600 Main Event.

'I'm just going to keep playing,' Tice added after the tournament.

A $1,600 buy-in, $400K GTD MSPT Main Event will take place at Venetian from November 19-23. Once again PokerNews will offer live updates straight from the tournament floor.

That tournament will start players with 30,000 in chips and play 60-minute levels. There will also be three starting flights instead of two starting with Day 1a at 11:10 a.m. on Thursday, November 19. Days 1b and 1c will take place at the same time on Friday, November 20, and Saturday, November 21 respectively. Late registration will remain open until 1:15 p.m. on Day 2, which will play out on Sunday, November 22.

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Joey IngramLandon TiceMSPTTournament ResultsVenetian
Related Players
Joey IngramLandon Tice

Chad HollowayJesse Fullen

The fourth edition of the Mid-States Poker Bowl (MSPT) $1,100 buy-in Poker Bowl at The Venetian in Las Vegas featured a $1 million guarantee, and a massive turnout of 1,093 entries over three starting flights resulted in a $1,060,210 prize pool.

On Saturday night, the day before the NFL Super Bowl LIV between the San Francisco 49ers and Kansas City Chiefs, a winner was crowned in the MSPT Poker Bowl IV after Bob Whalen began as the Day 2 chip leader and rode it to victory after a five-way deal was struck.

Venetian Poker Room Tournaments

Whalen took $140,152 as a part of that deal, which was a new career-high surpassing the $129,967 he previously won back in 2009 after taking down a Heartland Poker Tour (HPT) Main Event. In 2008, he also finished 79th in the World Series of Poker Main Event for $77,200.

Whalen, formerly from Wisconsin, has lived in Vegas for the past three and a half years playing about town nearly every day of the week. However, it wasn’t his first taste of victory at Venetian as ten years ago he won three DeepStack tournaments within a two-week span.

Final Table Results

Place	Player	Prize
1	Bob Whalen	$140,152*
2	Grachia Minasian	$100,682*
3	George Brady	$96,839*
4	Thomas Lust	$94,376*
5	Oluwashola Akindele	$85,004*
6	John Dennehey	$38,168
7	Justin Young	$29,686
8	Vadim Shlez	$23,325
9	Eyal Al Revah	$19,084
19	Kou Yang	$14,843

_{*Denotes five-way deal.}

Among those to make the money at the top 150 were Terry Fleischer (14th - $11,662), Marko Pantelic (20th - $8,588), Poker Bowl II champ Kfir Nahum (22nd - $7,209), Kathy Liebert (23rd - $7,209), Sorel Mizzi (31st - $4,559), Brett Halan (41st - $3,499), Ashley Sleeth (47th - $3,181), Kenna James (60th - $2,863), Chipp Jett (66th - $2,757), Eric Wasylenko (70th - $2,757), and MSPT Season 1 Running Aces champ Joe Matheson (77th - $2,651).

Final Table Action

MSPT regular Kou Yang was the first final table casualty after running pocket fours into Justin Young’s sixes, and Eyal Al Revah followed him out the door after committing his short stack with king-ten suited only to see Grachia Minasian roll over pocket aces. Revah flopped a flush draw but bricked the turn and river to fall in ninth place.

The short-stacked Vadim Shlez was next to go after losing king-ten to Young’s ace-queen all in preflop, while Young himself bowed out in seventh running pocket tens

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Venetian Poker Room Results