The Mid-States Poker Tour returned to Firekeepers Casino in Battle Creek, Mich., for its fourth event in the state, and it was a remarkable success. The $1,100 main event drew a record-setting 517 entries to the MSPT tournament, which ran Oct. 11-19.
Ryan Dykhouse of Grand Rapids, Mich., took home the title and $125,400 after a heads-up battle with Mark Johnson of Warren, Mich.
Adam Friedman of Gahanna, Ohio, busted after three-bet shoving with K-5 and was snap-called by Dykhouse holding 8-8. The board didn’t help Friedman, sending him to the rail with $45K for third, pushing his lifetime earnings to $1.677 million.
Dykhouse and Johnson battled for more than an hour. Johnson had a hard time getting any traction and Dykhouse just always seemed to have the goods, including flopping a straight flush but only getting one street of value.
Dykhouse chipped away at Johnson’s stack knocking him down to about 14 big blinds before Johnson three-bet shoved with 10-3. Dykhouse called with A-2 and the board ran out clean to give Dykhouse the win.
Johnson made back-to-back final tables at Firekeepers during MSPT events in 2014. He collected $75K for second to go along with his $35,745 for third in May.
Firekeepers Casino hosts some of the largest tournaments in the state, including a $220 event on the second and fourth Sundays of each month. It also runs a Tournament of Champions quarterly, inviting the top scoring players from the daily, $110 Sunday and $220 tournaments.
The spacious 14-table poker room has a unique $1-$3 no-limit hold’em game, which has a $100-$500 min-max buy-in to start. It’s called Match the Stack, meaning after the first hand of a new game, players may buy up to the largest stack if that stack is greater than $500. Other games include $1-$2 pot-limit Omaha, limit hold’em ($3-$6, $4-$8, $10-$20), $1-$2 NLHE and $2-$5 NLHE-PLO.
— Email Scott at anteupscottm@gmail.com.
