Pe Kyaw has won the RunGood Poker Series Main Event at Graton Resort & Casino in Rohnert Park, California just north of San Francisco. The resident of Daly City, CA took home the top prize worth $90,330, the RunGood Checkpoint Ring, and an entry into the November Dream Seat Invitational that will also be hosted in Northern California at Thunder Valley Casino Resort in November.
This was also the first tournament win for Kyaw. When asked about his strategy by the PokerNews reporters he simply responded, “Play tight, play good.”
The $800 buy-in no-limit hold’em tournament had a prize pool worth $730,100 thanks to four starting flights that attracted a total of 1,043 entries. The top 132 players all cashed for at least $1,175 in prize money. There were just 131 that returned for the second day of the tournament.
The final table began after eight hours of play. Local regular Noel Rodriguez started the final day with the chip lead, but he limped into the final table with the shortest stack. He was eliminated in ninth place when his J-10 couldn’t catch up against the K-Q of David Bellacose. Jason Castro quickly fell next in eighth place when he was dominated with A-J behind the A-Q of Taylor Pollard.
Pollard scored another knockout punch when he woke up with pocket aces against the pocket jacks of James Cavanaugh. The board changed nothing so Cavanaugh exited in seventh place. Pollard kept his personal run good going when he took out Mitchell Collins in sixth place as well. In that hand, K-J topped A-9 thanks to a king that fell on the flop before the money got all in.
Kyaw then scored a key double up through Bellacose to take his stack past 4 million before Don Vo busted in fifth place. Vo was all in with A-9 and Pollard was the culprit once again holding a dominating A-J that held up to win the hand. Kyaw scored his first elimination at the final table when his pocket threes made a set on the flop to top the pocket jacks of Bellacose that got all-in preflop.
Even with that elimination Kyaw was last in chips when three-handed play began. His 8.75 million was behind the 10.6 million held by Daniel Lowery, and the 11.9 million held by Pollard. The chip stacks evened out after a period of three-handed play that saw Kyaw rise to the top. The final three players then decided on an ICM chop to end the tournament that saw Pollard take third, RGPS leading title winner Lowery finishing as the runner-up, and Kyaw was crowned the champion.
A few other notables that cashed in the event included Marco Johnson (19th), Seaver Kyaw (29th), Cody Stanford (32nd), Adam Curchack (37th), Jasthi Kumar (38th), Travis Fujisaka (39th), Rob Mariano (47th), Josh Prager (76th), Randy Gil (89th), Brett Murray (90th), Alex Loncar (93rd), Bilgun Edgerel (100th), William Murray (101st), Tai Tran (114th), Jacob Long (117th), Joe Nguyen (120th), and Papa Karn (127th).
Here is a look at the results from the final table:
1: Pe Kyaw – $90,330
2: Daniel Lowery – $88,870
3: Taylor Pollard – $84,835
4: David Bellacose – $41,195
5: Don Vo – $31,255
6: Mitchel Collins – $25,365
7: James Cavanaugh – $20,970
8: Jason Castro – $16,640
9: Noel Rodriguez – $12,420
Ryan is one of the original PokerLiveUpdates team members, a veteran poker tournament reporter who provides live updates reporting from the World Poker Tour, along with other tours and locations. He developed the FunTour2.0 concept of providing tremendous tournament coverage while exploring the world's best craft beer venues.
