The World Poker Tour Rolling Thunder Main Event with a $3,500 buy-in fee was completed a few hours ago. The event attracted a total of 379 players but only 45 were paid. Ravee Mathi Sundar was the one to top the field and win the first-place prize of $266,857.
Only several days ago, Sundar finished sixth in the WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star Main Event, which, too, was held in California.
The WPT Rolling Thunder $3,500 Main Event had six players sitting at the final table. And apart from Sundar, players such as Taylor Paur, who won the Bay 101 Shooting Star and the Season XIII California Swing tournaments, and prominent poker pro Harrison Gimbel took part in last night’s event.
In fact, it was Gimbel who held the majority of chips at the beginning of the final table. He had 3,135,000 and was followed by Sundar and Paur with 2,373,000 and 2,293,000, respectively.
Jeff Griffiths was eliminated first on Hand #13. He was defeated by Paur and was paid $50,291 of the entire prize pool.
Only two hands later, on Hand #15, Rex Clinkscales, too, fell victim to Paur. He had to content himself with the fifth position in the tournament and the sum of $62,864.
The next elimination occurred on Hand #43, when Gimbel was defeated by Jesse Rockowitz. The player cashed $83,818 for his fourth place.
Thus, there were only three remaining players – Sundar, Rockowitz, and Paur. However, it took quite some time before another one left the final table. This happened on Hand #141 when Paur was eliminated by Sundar. As mentioned above, Paur has previously won two WPT Season XIII events and if he had emerged victorious in this one, he would have become the third player with three consecutive WPT titles, the other two being Anthony Zinno and Darren Elias.
The heads-up play started with Sundar holding 9,305,000 in chips against Rockowitz’s 2,050,000. The final hand in the play occurred only four hands later. Rockowitz had [Kc][9s] and his opponent had [Jh][Jd]. The board ran [10d][3d][3h][6s][6h] and the two pairs of jacks and sixes won Sundar the WPT trophy, the sum of $266,857, and a pair of Monster DNA Headphones. The player also received a ticket for the WPT World Championship, which will be held at Atlantic City’s Borgata in the end of April.
As for Rockowitz, he was paid the amount of $176,018 for his runner-up finish.
The WPT is now to head for South Florida for its Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown, which is scheduled to kick off on April 16.
