US player Tuiofu Hunkin has won the WPTDeepStacks Thunder Valley Main Event after a short heads-up against Yury Klimenkov. He beat a 678-strong field on Monday to win the tournament title and his career’s largest cash of $121,000. With this win, he also secured a $3,000 seat into the season-ending WPTDeepStacks Championship, plus his total earnings went to $200,734.
“It’s really good, I never devalued my stack. I kept grinding, got lucky in a few spots, and it paid off,” said Hunkin when he was asked about his victory.
It is always good when Luck smiles upon you at the table, but Hunkin’s success was the result of his consistency in improving his game. He has been working hard on his game and his efforts have been paying off. He recently won a $1,000 buy-in preliminary event as well at Bay 101 Shooting Star.
The Main Event’s third and final day began with the nine final tablists. Mark Abrtique led the pack on final day. Abratique kept his momentum all the way down to 3-handed play. Thereafter, the eventual champion took the control and pressed ahead in his bid to claim the coveted title. It did not take long for the final table to come down to three and then to two players – Hunkin and Klimenkov.
The two-handed battle kicked off with Hunkin holding a huge chip lead over Klimenkov. The match did not last long as Hunkin did not give Klimenkov much chance to improve his situation.
On the final hand, both players bet 300,000 ahead of the 6s 3s 3h flop. Klimenov then bet 350,000 and Hunkin re-raised to 1.45 million. Klimenkov moved all-in for 5.15 million and Hunkin made the call. Hunkin had 9d 6d against 4s 4d of Klimenkov. The turn opened Ad and 9s arrived on the river to seal the title for Hunkin. Klimenkov thus ended as a runner-up for an impressive $84,500.
Final 9 Payouts:
1st: Tuiofu Hunkin – $121,000
2nd: Yury Klimenkov – $84,500
3rd: Mike Abratique – $54,690
4th: Nick Wooderson – $40,060
5th: John Hadley – $30,645
6th: Aaron Dalnoot – $24,485
7th: Patrick Johnson – $20,280
8th: Kindah Sakkal – $16,145
9th: Patrick Dunn – $12,120
