Seth Foster Beats Allen Kessler to Win HPT New Orleans
Allen Kessler may be best-known for his Twitter rants, but he occasionally makes noise on the felt as well. Such was the case at Heartland Poker Tour Boomtown New Orleans, where Kessler finished second in the $1,100 Main Event to Seth Foster, who collected $59,891 for first place.
It was the biggest career score for Foster, who added an HPT bracelet to his World Series of Poker Circuit ring. Kessler, meanwhile, added yet another chunk to his $3.3 million in live cashes.
Official Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Seth Foster | $59,891 |
| 2 | Allen Kessler | $38,279 |
| 3 | Edward Sebesta | $25,649 |
| 4 | Jonathan Hart | $18,098 |
| 5 | Phillip Treaudo | $13,541 |
| 6 | Jeff Sager | $10,937 |
| 7 | Gene Cavaceci | $9,114 |
| 8 | Turk Dursun | $7,552 |
| 9 | Philip Placzek | $6,536 |
The tournament drew 275 players and 31 would make the money. Caufman Talley, Blake Barousse, Ben Keeline, Josh Lowing, Josh Mancuso and Gene Dudek were some of the players making the money but falling short of the final table.
According to the live updates, Kessler took a nasty beat when his tens lost to the 5x2x of Jonathan Hart all in preflop near the final table bubble. Kessler managed to recover and make his way to the televised final table after he overcame Phillip Treaudo's ace-king with ace-queen.
With eight players left in the event, Foster had been in the middle of the pack but picked up the aces-over-kings cooler to send Turk Dursun packing and move up the counts and become one of the top remaining stacks.
After Gene Cavaceci took a beat to bust in seventh, Foster kept the momentum going by winning a race with eights against the ace-queen of Jeff Sager.
Kessler then finished off Treaudo and Foster picked up A♣J♣ when Hart shoved in 18 big blinds with A♦5♣. A jack and two clubs on the flop ended things quickly and Foster then held 5.2 million of about 8 million total in chips three-handed.
Ed Sebesta tried to bluff all in with J♦8♦ on a flop of A♠K♠2♥, but Foster called him with Q♠10♠ for a combo draw that was already ahead with queen-high. An eight on the turn gave Sebesta a good chance to double, but the Q♥ river meant it was heads up between Kessler and Foster.
Foster held a big lead and it was one Kessler couldn't overcome. He picked up fives and got his stack in preflop, only to see Foster turn over a bigger pair of nines. Neither player improved on an ace-high runout and the former HPT Player of the Year had to settle for second place.
Photo courtesy of HPT
