Hosted at the Thunder Valley Resort Casino, the 2017 World Poker Tour Rolling Thunder is over. The event saw 421 entries and had some big global poker names in attendance. Eventually, it was the poker pro Mike ‘3kingme3’ Del Vecchio who emerged the winner. He defeated a stacked final table and Sorel Mizzi in heads-up to claim the top prize of $284,638.
Expressing his feelings, Del Vecchio said “I was joking with my friends that this was probably one of the toughest WPT final tables I’ve ever seen,” ….“It means a lot to win, it feels really good.”
Final Table Story
Mike Del Vecchio was really impresive at the final table and defeated a talented group of players including Sorel Mizzi, ConnorDrinan, and Olivier Busqueton to win his first WPT title. Mike Del Vecchio started the final table as chip lead with a massive 178 big blinds, while the shortest stack going into the final table was the WPT Champions Club member Olivier Busquet with 28 blinds.
The shortest stacked Busquet had a good start and he railed Connor Drinan in 6th place for $52,222. However, he could not keep the momentum in his favour and was eliminated by Steven Tabb in 5th place for $63,013. The next elimination came in the form of John Hadley who moved all-in with Ac-Qh and Del Vecchio called with his 6s-6d. The board came 10s-7d-5s-4d-6h and Del Vecchio took the chip lead to start three-way action with his opponents- Sorel Mizzi and Steven Tabb. The three-way action got slow and lasted for hours before Del Vecchio finally opened the gap by knocking out Tabb in 3rd place for $122,296.
After eliminating Tabb, Del Vecchio moved into heads-up with Mizzi. In the heads-up game, the former held roughly 8.1 million of about12.6 million chips. Although Del Vecchio entered as chip lead in the heads-up play, Mizzi gave him a tough fight. It took long time for Del Vecchio to steal the show. On the final hand, both players got involved in a heated action with Mizzi check-raising and Del Vecchio moving all-in with 5d-4h. Mizzi finally made the call with 6h-5s. The board came 7s-4c-2h-4-Jh, giving Del Vecchio his first WPT title and the top prize. In addition, he also secured 1080 points on the WPT POY leaderboard, which pushed him into 20th position on the WPT Leaderboard 2017.
Final Table Payouts and POY Points Awarded to Final 6:
| Place | Player | Earnings (USD) | POY Points |
| 1 | Michael Del Vecchio | $284,638 | 1080 |
| 2 | Sorel Mizzi | $190,105 | 900 |
| 3 | Steven Tabb | $122,296 | 720 |
| 4 | John Hadley | $81,930 | 540 |
| 5 | Olivier Busquet | $63,013 | 450 |
| 6 | Connor Drinan | $52,222 | 360 |