Terry Ring followed up his third-place finish at the Heartland Poker Tour Prairie Meadows last fall with a victory in St. Louis.
This stop drew a slightly smaller field because of the forecast of extreme snow.
“The snow killed us on Saturday,” tournament director Tony Russo said. The main event drew 324 players for a $466,560 prize pool.
New to tournament poker, runner-up Parminder Singh played an aggressive style and nearly took home the title. St. Louis native Keith Brodie made back-to-back final tables at HPT River City, improving on his seventh-place finish in November by finishing fourth. Returning champion Roger Campbell finished sixth.
Playing three-handed, Ring held more than half of the chips in play. Chris Cornell and Singh were almost even. Cornell raised on the button, Ring folded and Singh raised all-in. Cornell called and showed J-J to Singh’s A-10. The flop came 6-6-6. The turn was a six and the river a four. Singh won the hand with quad sixes and an ace kicker. Cornell was left with few chips and was out a few hands later.
Entering heads-up play, Ring had the chip lead with 5.32M to Singh’s 4.4M. Singh later won a large pot and took over the chip lead. After that, both slowed down and played smaller pots. After 128 hands of heads-up play, Ring finished on top for his biggest win of almost $112K.
— Email Don at anteupdonm@gmail.com.
