Mid-States Poker Tour Venetian $1,600 Main Event won by Korey Payne

A total of 1,239 entries were made to the 2020 Mid-States Poker Tour Venetian $1,600 buy-in no-limit hold ’em main event. The prize pool eventually amounted to $1,771,770, blowing away the $400,000 guarantee. Korey Payne, a Portland, Oregon resident won the event, giving him his first live tournament title and a total of $327,773 in prize money. The other top 127 finishers all had a piece of what was remaining from the prize pool.

As the champion of the event, Korey earned 960 Card Player’s Player of the Year points, which were enough in itself to move him up to 76th place in the 2020 POY race standings. He is tied in that position with seven other poker players in the Global Poker sponsored leader boards.

Five Days Of Play

The event started on the 19th of November and lasted for five days. The last day started with 63 players from the 1.239 entries, with Korey sitting right in the middle of the pack as soon as the competition was underway. Salim Admon was the only one ahead of him by the time the eight-handed final table was set. He conveniently climbed into the second chip position before the final table was all set.

Dale Eberle was sent to the rail in eighth place after Admon picked up pocket aces against him. This extended Admon’s lead and was the end of the race for Dale who went home with $28,348. Jordan Helstern finished in 7th after his pocket eights failed to win a preflop race against the Q-J of Randy Froelich. Jorden’s journey ended there and he took home $37,207.

Satoshi Tanaka J of Spades and J of Hearts was enough to see him edge out David Poces’ run in the event. He had K of Spades and Q of Spades but got no help from the board; hence, securing a sixth-place position and a total winning of $49,610. Martin Zamani knocked out Satoshi Tanaka and Randy Froelich, which made him join the eight-figure chip club, while Payne won a big pot of the leader and joined Admon in the over 10 million in chips club. Satoshi was placed fifth and left the tournament with $65,555 in prize money. Randy was fourth and went home with $100,991.

Zamani, Payne, and Admon battled it out for a while before Zamani was knocked out. He left the tournament with $148,829, bringing his total tournament earnings to almost $2.6 million. This was his fourth six-figure live tournament score and for his deep run, he was also awarded 640 POY points. That brought his total POY points to 1,008, placing him in 67th place in the Player of the Year rankings.

After Zamani’s exit, Payne went into the heads-up play against Salim with a sizeable lead. The short-stacked Admon doubled up twice in a bid to close the gap. However, he was unable to complete the comeback. In the final hand, Payne matched all of Admon’s bet and raises as he was holding a K of Diamonds and a 6 of Diamonds. Admon had in his hand, Q of Spades and 9 of Hearts. After Admon raised to 2,000,000, Payne moved an all-in. Payne revealed his hand and was in a big lead with his kings and sixes. The J of Hearts could not help Admon, hence, his elimination. Salim Admon went home with $219,699 and was awarded 800 POY points.