Joe Nguyen Takes Down Heartland Poker Tour Club One Main Event for $75,754
Telephone repairman Joe Nguyen emerged victorious at the $1,650 Heartland Poker Tour Club One Main Event on Sunday. Nguyen bested a field of 218 to claim the biggest tournament win of his life, and did so by beating Su Kim heads up on her home turf.
Kim is the Director of Business Development at the Club One Casino, and she had an impressive group of supporters behind her during the final table — many of them holding large signs. But Nguyen ignored the distractions and focused his efforts on winning the tournament and the $75,754 top prize.
Heartland Poker Tour Club One Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Joe Nguyen | $75,754 |
| 2 | Su Kim | $46,715 |
| 3 | Jed Hoffman | $31,565 |
| 4 | Daniel Evans | $22,411 |
| 5 | William Chao | $17,360 |
| 6 | Stan Jablonski | $14,204 |
| 7 | Triet Nguyen | $11,837 |
| 8 | Tanya Kirk | $9,943 |
| 9 | Prabhakar Thonduru | $8,207 |
The final table was mostly filled with local players from the Fresno, California area. Two of those players went to battle early on as Kim eliminated short stack Prabhakar Thonduru in ninth place when her pocket eights held up against KxJx.
After Tanya Kirk (eighth place) and Triet Nguyen (seventh place) exited, HPT regular Stan Jablonski was sent to the rail in sixth place. Jablonski was at his fourth HPT final table and seeking his first title, but his run ended when he moved all in with Ax4x and was unable to improve against Nguyen's Ax9x.
Nguyen eliminated another HPT veteran, William Chao, in fifth place. Playing at his second career HPT final table, Chao was eliminated when his Ax10x came up short against Nguyen's AxKx.
Daniel Evans and Jed Hoffman were the next to go, leaving Nguyen and Kim playing heads up for the title. Kim had already survived four all-in situations at the final table to survive, catching a card on the river three of those times, but was unable to do it again against Nguyen. He locked up the championship in just two hands and took the big payday back to his home in San Jose.
The Heartland Poker Tour has a busy few weeks ahead with stops in Black Hawk, St Louis, Palm Springs, Vicksburg and Daytona Beach before the end of March. Stay tuned to PokerNews for recaps of each Main Event.
Photo and data courtesy of Heartland Poker Tour.
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