Isaac Kempton Wins WSOPC Tampa Main Event for $290,974; David Tuthill Crowned Casino Champ

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Feb 18, 2020 5 min read

The World Series of Poker Circuit Seminole Hard Rock Tampa $1,700 Main Event reached its conclusion Monday night after three long days of play and what a story it created with a massive 1,162-entry turnout.

In the end, the poker world saw new star break onto the scene in Isaac Kempton, who took home the grand prize of $290,974, a coveted gold ring, and a seat into the 2020 Global Casino Championship. The 22-year-old was playing in just his second live tournament ever and made his presence known by finishing as both the Day 1 and Day 2 chip leader and riding all the way to the title.

"I probably got into poker around four years ago, right as I was heading off to college."

Kempton has been a student of the game for some time and has honed his skills before testing them in the open waters of tournament poker.

"I probably got into poker around four years ago, right as I was heading off to college and I saw some YouTube videos of the old High Stakes Poker days, and then once you watch one then you start watching more and get drawn into the rabbit hole," Kempton explained. "You just want to keep watching and I was like this game looks really fun and they are playing for a ton of money, maybe I should try this myself."

What’s next for the newly crowned WSOP Circuit Champion?

"This semester I'm taking off, so I'm on a leave of absence. So yeah, I'm just playing poker full-time basically."

If this tournament is anything to go by, the poker world may be seeing a lot more of Kempton in the near future.

Main Event Final Table Results

Route to Ring Victory

Making Kempton’s win even more impressive was the wire-to-wire nature of it. He was the Day 1 chip leader as well as the chip leader after Day 2. He started the day off strong on Day 3, but eventually he did hit his first patch of adversity in the middle part of the day and was third in chips heading into the final table.

At the final table he would sink to as low as the short stack at one point before regaining strength during four-handed play. He then surged in chips after he eliminated both Robert Manjura and Paul Balzano in fourth and third place respectively to take a big chip lead into heads up versus the very experienced David Jackson.

Heads-up play started well in Jackson’s favor as he cut into Kempton’s lead to get closer. But after just a few hands Kempton’s tournament would end in appropriate storybook fashion. Jackson made bets on the flop and turn that Kempton called. On the river, Jackson, the weathered tournament veteran, put the young gun to the ultimate test by jamming all in. Kempton went deep in thought before softly making the one-chip call that he will likely remember for the rest of his life, the one that would win him the Circuit Ring and the huge payday when it was revealed that his third pair was good against Jackson’s bluff.

Kempton explained his thought process about the call that won him the tournament.

"I'm afraid there was not a read. I don't know very much about live poker and I don't know much about live reads, I can't read people!" he admitted but then explained that it was more analytical than anything.

"The hand before was just a bad hand with the way it played out so I decided not to go for the bluff-catch there. I think that the main difference in the last hand, where I did go for the successful bluff-catch is that he can have so many more bluffs with the way the board ran out and given by the fact that I just called the flop it's kind of hard for me to have the stronger hands unless I picked up an ace on the turn, so even though an eight is like third pair and doesn't seem that strong, in heads-up ranges they are so much wider that you just have to go for it sometimes."

Final Table Action

The day started with 25 players and the eliminations went fairly steadily down until the final table. The eliminations at the final table started off quickly as John Ott became the first victim when he ran into the top pair of Kempton to finish in 10th place. Fares Santana hit the rail shortly after as he was felled by the pocket cowboys of Francisco Gomez. Brad Sailor follow him out the door in eighth place to quickly move the table down to seven-handed.

Action would slow significantly with seven players left with many changes in chip positions. It took nearly four hours before the next elimination when Gomez hit the deck in seventh place to finally get the field to six-handed. Right before the next break Ioannis Patsourakis got unlucky twice in a row to succumb to flushes.

James Calderaro, who had a fantastic performance at this Tampa Circuit stop, was the next player to be eliminated in fifth place.

Play would again slow down for a while four-handed until a bombastic three-way all-in hand took out Manjura in fourth place at the hands of Kempton. Exactly one hand later, Balzano was taken out in third. After holding the chip lead for much of the final table, Balzano was finally slain, also by the sword of Kempton. That set up the aforementioned heads up battle that Kempton would emerge victorious.

David Tuthill Crowned Casino Champ

Also winning a seat into the 2020 Global Casino Championship was David Tuthill, who claimed the title of “Casino Champion” after notching six cashes during the series. That included a win in Event #3: $400 NLH Turbo for $15,272 and his second career gold ring, sixth in Event #7: $1,125 PLO 8-Handed for $8,746, and third in Event #14: $250 NLH Double Stack for $8,140.

WSOPC Tampa Ring Winners

• Tags WSOP Circuit Tournament Results Seminole Hard Rock David Tuthill David Jackson Isaac Kempton
• Related Tournaments World Series of Poker Circuit
• Related Players David TuthillDavid JacksonIsaac Kempton