Ben Marsh Nabs MSPT Championship for Second Time

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Last weekend, the Mid-States Poker Tour (MSPT) Season 8 finale that was held at the Canterbury Park in Minnesota. Ben Marsh emerged victorious in the just concluded tournament and walked away with a whopping $102,493 after outlasting all of the 493 entries. The 32-year-old poker pro becomes one of the nine players to win more than one title in the tour’s history.

The MSPT Canterbury Park $1,100 Main Event was the largest major poker tournament in Minnesota’s history with buy-in of $1,000 and above – it was also the 14th Main Event to be held in Canterbury Park. However, this year’s Main Event marked Ben Marsh’s first ever win at the venue. His first win was in was back in Season 2 when he won the MSPT Treasure Island for $40,071. When asked about why it took six years before he was able to get his second win, Mash said, “The tour has grown so much. When I won the first time, first place was only $40K. Everyone involved with the tour has done a great job growing the events. Now they’re tournaments that you can’t miss. I think in general poker is a lot tougher these days.”

Cumulatively, Ben Marsh now boasts of four MSPT final tables, two wins as well as seven cashes which sums up his earnings to about $189,438. “I am feeling pretty great,” added Marsh. “I haven’t played a ton of live poker this year and didn’t have any luck when I did. This is only my second tournament since the WSOP in Las Vegas.”

The tour was also graced by some very big names in the poker industry including poker Twitter legend and MSPT first-timer Kevin Mathers, 2016 Michigan State Poker champion Brett Blackwood as well as Joe Matheson whose winning streak on every MSPT season came to an unfortunate end after her was eliminated on Day 1B. With Joe Matheson out of the equation now, there are only four players who have managed to cash out at every MSPT season; Jeremy Dresch, Matt Kirby, Kou Vang and Dan Hendrickson. In related news, Brian Mileski, the MSPT president was inducted into the Minnesota Poker Hall of Fame during the stop.

POY Won by Chris Meyer

All of the 27 players that remained in the MSPT Canterbury Park were guaranteed of 200 POY points on the Kimo Sabe Mezcal MSPT Season 8 Player of the Year Leaderboard. However, Chris Meyers, a New Yorker, held the lead with at least 3,550 points which means that none of the other players would be able to catch up with him thus giving him the numbers required to pocket the accompanying $10,000 prize.