Nitis Udornpim Wins, Anthony Zinno 4th at WPT Maryland Live!
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It's not all scandals and social media salvos in the poker world this week.
On the positive side, Nitis Udornpim added his name to the World Poker Tour Champions Cup after taking down the WPT Maryland Live! Main Event. Udornpim topped a field of 495 to earn $319,415 in prize money. With about $345K in earnings and a World Series of Poker Circuit ring to his credit coming into the tournament, the win marked Udornpim's first major title.
Udornpim's win also put a stop to Anthony Zinno's attempt to tie the tour record with a fourth win. Zinno made his seventh final table, but remains one behind Darren Elias in the record books as he wound up with a fourth-place finish.
| Place | Player | Country | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nitis Udornpim | U.S.A. | $319,415* |
| 2 | Stephen Deutsch | U.S.A. | $202,905 |
| 3 | Brian Altman | U.S.A. | $149,515 |
| 4 | Anthony Zinno | U.S.A. | $111,415 |
| 5 | Robert McLaughlin | U.S.A. | $83,970 |
| 6 | Jeffrey Colpitts | U.S.A. | $64,020 |
*includes $15K WPT Tournament of Champions seat
The $3,500 tournament built a prize pool north of $1.5 million. Some of the players who got a slice of that included Maryland's own Christian Harder, Jake Bazeley, Joe McKeehen, Ryan D'Angelo, Shankar Pillai and Elias himself with a 17th-place finish.
Brian Altman, himself a former tour champ, had the lead for most of the latter stages leading to the final table. When the last nine convened, he was a big stack with more than 200 big blinds along with Stephen Deutsch.
Udornpim, on the other hand, was short and got some momentum going at the final table when he scored three eliminations en route to the official final table of six. He won two flips to start the final six with 31 BBs, though Deutsch and Altman still paced well ahead of the rest.
Udornpim Survives
Udornpim was actually one card from being the first player out when, 48 hands into the final table, he called off just under 10 big blinds with A♠J♠ against fellow short stack Jeffrey Colpitts. He found himself staring at two kings and had seven outs to the river after picking up a gutshot. An ace spiked and Udornpim sat back down, while Colpitts was crippled to a few blinds and busted shortly after.
After Robert McLaughlin busted, Udornpim was again down to six big blinds. However, he managed to win a flip with Altman to stay afloat again. He then grabbed another dramatic double through Altman, this time with Q♦J♠ against J♥5♠ on a J♣8♣2♠ flop. A five hit on the turn, but the river saved Udornpim again when an eight fell.
Zinno Falls Short
Meanwhile, the story of the day was Zinno gunning for his fourth title.
He managed several doubles as a short stack as well, but he ultimately went down in a flip. He got his remaining chips in with eights, but it proved to be one all-in too many as he finally lost out to the ace-king held by Deutsch.
After winning his first three WPT final tables, Zinno added a fourth-place finish to the third place and two fifths he's had since his epic 2015 run.
Udornpim Storms Back
Way down in chips compared to Altman and leader Deutsch, Udornpim commenced a sizable comeback.
First, he doubled through Altman with ace-king over jacks, nailing a king on the river to survive yet again on the final card. Right after that, Udornpim coolered Altman for the rest with aces over queens to give himself a good shot heads up, down only 11.3 million to 8.4 million at 30,000/60,000/60,000.
As befitting the deep stacks, the match would last more than 100 hands.
Udornpim moved into the lead and was on fire early as he got Deutsch on the ropes down to about 25 bigs. However, Deutsch doubled up with a live king-eight against ace-nine, then he won a flip to even things out again.
Udornpim hammered Deutsch back down only to see him double back to a competitive stack around 6 million with K♣10♣ over K♥5♥.
Finally, on Hand No. 246, Deutsch called off about 3.8 million at 75,000/150,000/150,000 with K♠9♠. Udornpim had a slight preflop edge with A♠3♣, then flopped a wheel to go further in front. A spade on the turn kept Deutsch drawing live for a flush, but the river bricked and Udornpim secured the win.
