Alex Greenblatt Wins WPTDeepStacks Thunder Valley
Alex Greenblatt won WPTDeepStacks Thunder Valley in his home state of California for his second mid-major tour victory in just over a year's time. He won $122,500 including his WPTDeepStacks Championship package, the fifth six-figure score out of his $1.3 million in cashes.
Last year, he took down HPT Golden Gates for a career-best $179,274.
"It's great when you win a tournament, that's the only time you're happy after a tournament," he said to tournament reporters after the latest win. "I guess I'm up on the year so I will try to finish strong. Now I've got this championship to try and go win, so that should be fun."
Official 2018 WPTDeepStacks Thunder Valley Final Table Results
| Position | Player | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alex Greenblatt | $122,500* |
| 2 | James Brown | $83,600 |
| 3 | Nick Wooderson | $53,700 |
| 4 | Kelly Douglas | $36,480 |
| 5 | Paul Chai | $28,000 |
| 6 | Warren Kashiwagi | $23,280 |
| 7 | Robert Angeleri | $19,505 |
| 8 | Mimi Luu | $15,730 |
| 9 | Walter Robertson | $11,950 |
*includes $3,000 WPTDS Championship Package
The event, the last domestic event of the calendar year for the popular tour, drew 466 entries for the $1,500 price tag, creating a prize pool of $624,440. Greenblatt was near the chip lead at the two-table redraw and edged past James Brown to take the chip lead into the streamed final table.
Final Table Action
Greenblatt didn't waste any time furthering his advantage, as he scored the first elimination of the final table when he flopped top set of sevens against Walter Robertson. The latter committed his stack with an underpair and a gutshot after betting the flop and didn't improve, allowing Greenblatt to get back above 100 big blinds.
After Mimi Luu, a former champion of the event, was eliminated in eighth, Greenblatt would again find pocket sevens to be the ticket. He opened for 90,000 at 20,000/40,000/40,000 and Robert Angeleri called. On the 9♠7♠3♠ flop, Angeleri got it in with K♠K♦ against Greenblatt's set. He turned a flush but Greenblatt made quads on the river.
Warren Kashiwagi was next out in sixth, and Greenblatt would hit a slight snag when he doubled up Kelly Douglas with top pair against Douglas' aces. However, Greenblatt recovered when Paul Chai jammed just over 23 big blinds on the button with K♣5♣ and the pro woke up with A♣K♠ to get back in front.
Then, Greenblatt won a flip with ace-king against the tens of Douglas to take, over half of the chips into three-handed play — 7.3 million at 25,000/50,000/50,000.
Brown would then bust Nick Wooderson with ace-queen against ace-nine in the blinds to get up over 6 million himself and set up a deep-stacked heads-up match.
Heads-Up Battle
About an hour into heads-up play, Greenblatt had lost the lead but the two remained close. A raising war broke out and Greenblatt called a five-bet ship with ace-king, needing to get there against two jacks. Greenblatt flopped a king and rivered another to all but seal it, as Brown had only 210,000 left.
Brown would find one double and position himself for another when he got a dominating ace-king in against king-five, but a five on the flop secured Greenblatt his second mid-major tour win.
