Who Will Walk Away with the $160,632 Top Prize at HPT St. Louis?
The official final table has been set at the Heartland Poker Tour St. Louis $1,650 Main Event. Four hundred and eighty entries were logged over three initial flights and the 76 players to advance to Day 2 have been whittled down to nine.
Entering the day as the chip leader is 2019 MSPT Majestic Star champion Mike Shin. Shin comes into the final table with a stack of 3.445 million in chips with just over thirty-three minutes remaining in Level 24 (15,000/30,000/30,000). Shin has a list of accomplishments under his resume with his most recent coming from this summer when he finished third at the MSPT Venetian taking home $334,000 and while just eight players stand between him and his first HPT title, the road to victory will not be easy.
Second in chips with a stack of 2.495 million is Thomas Gabriel. Gabriel has experience with deep runs, having first place finishes at EPT 2012 $?5,000 + 250 No-Limit Hold'em - Heads-Up Championships and at the 2013 L.A. Poker Classic 1,100 No-Limit Hold'em - Mixed Max. Gabriel will look to add the biggest payday to his career and boost his lifetime earnings of $440,000.
Third in chips is a very familiar face in Nick Pupillo, who will be bringing 2.810 million chips to the final table. Pupillo is the most acclaimed player in the field with over $2.6 million in live earnings and is currently in first place on the HPT Season XV Player of the Year leaderboard.
The next five players on the leaderboard are all within the range of 360,00 to 1.595 million in chips, with the shortest stack entering the day being Robert Mitchell. Mitchell is a proud owner of a newly acquired WSOP gold bracelet and finds himself looking up at the other eight players on the leaderboard coming into the day with 315,000 in chips.
However, most of the players are relatively deep in relation to the blinds and given the stacked lineup in which, everyone at the final table has over $100,000 in live tournament earnings, it truly is anyone's game.
Here's a look at the final table, which will be live streamed (without hole cards per Missouri law) and recorded for a future television broadcast.
HPT St. Louis Final Table
| Seat | Player | Chip Count |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mike Shin | 3,445,000 |
| 2 | Jeff Sauer | 1,315,000 |
| 3 | Robert Mitchell | 315,000 |
| 4 | Hal Kirkpatrick | 1,595,000 |
| 5 | Joshua Turner | 800,000 |
| 6 | Nick Pupillo | 2,810,000 |
| 7 | Thomas Gabriel | 2,495,000 |
| 8 | Jason Darland | 360,000 |
| 9 | Austin McCormick | 1,375,000 |
Cards will fly on the final table at noon local time with a live stream following on a 30-minute delay. Levels will remain at 60 minutes in length until heads-up play begins, at which point they will become 30 minutes each until the $160,632 first-place prize has been claimed.
Updates will be provided here at PokerNews all day long to correspond with HPT’s live stream. Stay glued to both and make sure to catch all the action as a victor is determined.