Wendy Freedman Wins HPT Black Hawk ($167,696)
Wendy Freedman got her biggest career cash on Monday evening, taking down Heartland Poker Tour Black Hawk $1,650 Main Event in Colorado for $167,696 in a field of 496 entries.
According to the HPT, she's the second woman to win a Main Event title on the tour and the first since 2013.
With the win, Freedman surpassed $1 million in tournament cashes. Previous successes for her include a pair of Circuit rings and two World Series of Poker final tables. She was also coming off of a deep run in the WinStar River Poker Series $2,500 Main Event, where she finished 26th for $11,860.
Official Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Hometown | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Wendy Freedman | Las Vegas, NV | $167,696 |
| 2 | Mark Morris | Spring Lake, MI | $102,514 |
| 3 | Paul Richardson | San Ramon, CA | $67,954 |
| 4 | Alex Greenblatt | Santa Clara, CA | $47,247 |
| 5 | Corey Zedo | Denver, CO | $35,362 |
| 6 | Chris Barrett | Commerce City, CO | $27,342 |
| 7 | Shawn Roberts | Nixa, MO | $22,238 |
| 8 | Rich Alsup | Minneapolis, MN | $18,228 |
| 9 | Carl Oman | Vancouver, WA | $14,582 |
Chris Tryba, Max Young, Cord Garcia — who has won this event twice — and his fellow Colossus champ Ben Keeline were some of the players who made it into the 54 paid places but fell short of the final table on Day 2.
Freedman, meanwhile, took the chip lead into the final table with over 80 big blinds, according to the live updates.
Final Table Action
After the early elimination of Carl Oman, Minnesota's Rich Alsup took a beat when short stack Chris Barrett got in with three outs and doubled through him to leave him with just over 20 big blinds. Alsup got the rest of those in after flopping top pair with A♣Q♣ against Freedman's flush draw — she defended in the blinds with 10♠2♠ — and a spade hit on the turn to leave Alsup cooked before the river even hit.
Another notable at the final table was American pro Alex Greenblatt, who won this very event last year. He called a shove of 10 big blinds from HPT stalwart Shawn Roberts and was fortunate enough to have ace-seven triumph over ace-nine, reducing the field to six.
Barrett then ran out of steam as he shoved for 16 big blinds holding eights over a Freedman open. She had nines and called to send him packing in sixth.
Greenblatt got three-outed by Paul Richardson when his ace-eight couldn't hold against ace-deuce. Down to 11 big blinds a little after that, he got them in with K♠J♦ against the Q♠Q♣ of Mark Morris. A Q♦2♦10♦ flop brought lots of outs for Greenblatt but Richardson turned him dead when a ten hit.
Then, Freedman won her most critical pot at the final table. At 50,000/100,000/50,000, she opened for 340,000. Corey Zedo made it 825,000 and then called all in for 2.9 million with aces. Freedman had eights but flopped a boat to bust Zedo and snag half of the total chips.
Richardson doubled numerous times as the short stack during final-table play but finally hit payouts when Freedman won a flip against him, pairing on the river with ace-queen against sevens.
That left her heads up against Morris leading a little over 2-1 with about 10 million at 60,000/120,000/60,000. The match didn't last long as both players picked up pairs. Morris had to be happy sticking his chips in with eights, but Freedman had kings. Like Freedman earlier, Morris found a set, but unlike Freedman, he was in bad shape against top set. He didn't hit his one-outer, so Freedman took down the tournament.
