Tyler Patterson kept his rungood going at Thunder Valley Casino Resort by capturing the Million Dollar Main title at the RunGood Poker Series CheckPoint stop on July 31. Less than a year after he finished runner-up in the RunGood Poker Series Season Finale main event back in December 2022, Patterson finished one place better to score the first-place prize worth $200,422.
Patterson now holds over $3.3 million in earnings over the course of his poker career. With the victory, Patterson moves into second place on the All-Time TVPokerRoom Money List, behind only GodOfThunder Brett Murray.
Murray, who defeated Patterson in this event last year, won a RunGood Series side event just an hour before Patterson claimed the win in the Million Dollar Main and was railing Patterson as the Main finished.
“It was so crazy being back in the same spot as I was back in December, heads-up for the ring. But then it was way more fun and we had made a deal so it wasn’t as stressful, but this was completely different,” Patterson told the PokerNews reporters after coming out on top. Patterson added this title to a trophy case that also boasts a World Series of Poker gold bracelet and a World Poker Tour win.
The $2,500 buy-in no-limit hold’em tournament attracted a field of 477 entries, and the prize pool was set at $1,064,187. The final 72 players all scored a min-cash worth at least $3,245. Notables who made a deep run in the event before the final table included Stephen Song (39th), Ethan Yau (31st), Jeff Platt (26th), and Jared Jaffee (19th).
Patterson was at the center of the chip counts to kick off the final table, and he bided his time while Paul Sampson wielded the largest stack in play during the early going. Patterson scored a knockout punch by taking out Shijia Liu in fourth place, and then he got a well-timed double up to take the chip lead during three-handed play.
The exit of poker professional Darren Rabinowitz in third place set the stage for a heads-up final between Patterson and Sampson.
The final battle lasted two hours before the last hand of the tournament played out. Sampson got all in with Jd3d, and Patterson had him covered holding Ad8d. The board was dealt [As][9c][5s][9h][3h], and Sampson was eliminated in second place. That was good for $141,585 in prize money to take Sampson’s career earnings up to $343,100.
Here are the final table results:
1st: Tyler Patterson – $200,422
2nd: Paul Sampson – $141,585
3rd: Darren Rabinowitz – $90,315
4th: Shijia Liu – $63,495
5th: Kevin O’Donnell – $49,055
6th: Adam Hannula – $41,025
7th: Phatseluck Yang – $33,905
8th: Michael Zimmer – $27,040
9th: Alexander Rodriguez – $21,505
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.
