On cruise control most of the day – as though his home game was playing at TVPokerRoom – JC Tran becomes the newest winner of the RunGood Million Dollar Main. Tran defeated Rajat Paliwal in what became a roller-coaster 90-minute heads-up match, collecting $163,760 FTW.
Paliwal cashed for $108,000, more than doubling his career poker tournament earnings.
Living outside Sacramento, Tran is a regular when a series Main Event plays at Thunder Valley Resort’s TVPokerRoom – but this is one he nearly missed.
With a major construction project scheduled this past weekend at his home, Tran initially planned to stay and see the project to its completed. He chose to come in for Sunday’s Noon flight, having the Sunday night Turbo as a backup. He needed the backup plan, bagging the Turbo and getting home about 4 am.
Just three hours after getting home, construction crews fired up at his home, cutting his ‘sleep,’ to maybe 90 minutes before he made his way back for today’s Day 2 Final.
A Tournament That Almost Never Was
The lights dimmed about 45 minutes before cards were to go in the air for the first Million Dollar Main flight at TVPokerRoom – prompting many in the room at the time to call out Jeff Platt’s name for his ‘Dim the Lights,’ frequent comment. The flights flickered off, and back on again about 15 minutes before Flight A’s beginning, and tournament staff began scurrying about.
Time came for action to begin – with 50-some players gathered – but the tournament did not begin. Some 10 minutes later, Ben Erwin, Thunder Valley’s Director of Poker Operations, announced Flight A was being suspended, and he was asking all poker room to kindly move toward the casino’s exits.
Flight A ended up begin canceled, for a cement truck had crashed into a construction site across the street from the casino, toppling a power pole, igniting a small brush fire and disrupting both the power supply and water supply to the entire casino, forcing what became a seven-hour-long shutdown of the entire property.
Casino and poker room management worked with the RunGood Poker Series staff, confirming the tournament would continue and the $1,000,000 Guarantee would be honored. To adjust for losing one 12-hour qualifying day, tournament staff added two 6-hour qualifying Turbo flights to the schedule. One of those Turbo flights is how Tran found his way into Day 2, and eventually into the winner’s photo.
Tran’s Poker Home
Playing at a location close to home, being able to sleep – when sleep can be found, that is – in his own bed helped Tran feel as though the tournament was an extension of his home. he entertained players with stories about his poker travels as he moved from table to table throughout the day.
Tablemates were eating up the stories, being around a JC Tran few have seen here before. It was as if JC’s Home Game was playing in the tournament arena, and he was holding court.
He was reminiscing about playing in Reno in his early 20’s, seeing the likes of Scotty Nguyen come play in a major tournament he was in. He talked after the tournament of how much fun he’s having not traveling as much these days for poker, focusing more on family, coaching his son’s basketball team and the passion he has for family activies.
Once he traveled the world to play poker, now he skips tournaments for family activities, and he says this is the best time of his life.
And … he’s the latest to win the Million Dollar Main.
Here is your Official Order of Finish
MILLION DOLLAR MAIN – FINAL RESULTS
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