WPT Rolling Thunder Championship Reaches Final Table; Yunkyu Song Leads Big
Table Of Contents
The World Poker Tour (WPT) Rolling Thunder Championship had 458 entrants, but only six remaining heading into Tuesday's final table, which begins at 11 a.m. PT at Thunder Valley Casino Resort in Lincoln, California.
When Day 3 began on Monday, 32 players still had chips. But many of them would fall quickly, including Dan Sepiol (26th place for $9,600), former WPT champ Nam Le (14th place for $16,900), and 2022 WPT Prime Championship winner Stephen Song (13th place for $16,900).
How We Got Here
It took little time for the first five players to bust on Day 3. Yunkyu Song began the day with the chip lead and would only extend it throughout the session, busting multiple players, and finished with more than half the chips in play.
With eight players remaining and heavy pay jumps on the horizon, Matthew Widdoes moved all in with K♦9♥ and about 10 big blinds. Brock Wilson, who was also short stacked and barely had Widdoes covered, used three time extension chips before throwing in a call with A♥6♠, which turned out to be the best hand, and it held up, sending Widdoes home in eighth place for $35,500.
Final Table Chip Counts
| PLACE | PLAYER | STACK |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Yunkyu Song | 13,525,000 |
| 2 | Michael Kinney | 2,375,000 |
| 3 | Cody Wiegmann | 2,175,000 |
| 4 | Casey Sandretto | 2,000,000 |
| 5 | Travis Egbert | 1,750,000 |
| 6 | Brock Wilson | 1,075,000 |
Song dominated the action on Day 2 and even more so Day 3. By the end of the session, he bagged 13,525,0000 after eliminating Mitchell Halverson in seventh place ($46,000), on the final table bubble. No other player has more than 2,375,000 chips. Song will enter the final table, to be livestreamed on the WPT's YouTube channel, with 135 of the 230 big blinds in play. He's so deep that he can withstand doubling up the second biggest stack and still holding a sizable chip lead.
That said, this is no-limit Texas hold'em where anything can happen, and no lead in a tournament is ever safe enough to call it over, especially not with crushers at the table such as Wilson, who has over $7 million in lifetime live tournament cashes.
Michael Kinney is the lone remaining past WPT champion in the field, and that might be a name poker boom era players remember. In 2004, he won the $5,200 buy-in WPT Reno Hilton event for $629,469, but hasn't cashed in a World Poker Tour event since 2005.
Each player still standing has a guaranteed minimum payout of $60,000, and the top four finishers will earn a six-figure payday, with first place taking home $296,600.
