HPT: Matt Culberson Turns $375 Into $129,000

At the Ameristar Casino Resort Spa in St. Charles, Missouri, 383 poker players took to the felt fighting to win an enormous first place prize of $129,147. A buy-in of $1,650 created a $538,115 prize pool with 36 players getting into the money and the smallest payout set at $3,767. As it always happens after many levels of poker, a final table of 9 players was reached, with everyone guaranteed at least $12,915.

First out at the final table was Matt Mueller when his A-10 did not improve against the pocket Queens held by Matt Cannella. The poker player from Columbia, Illinois earned $12,915 for his ninth place finish.

The biggest disappointment was Carl Johnny Masters, who started the day second in chips. He had hopes for a high finish but found himself all-in against Matt Culberson for almost 40% of the chips in play. Masters, a junk dealer from Clarksville, Tennessee, held pocket nines to Culberson's pocket queens. The best hand held up and Masters was out of the tournament in eighth place, earning $15,067.

One guy was definitely happy with the outcome of the previous clash between Masters and Culberson. That was Joshua Turner, who had less than one big blind left and was forced to put it in on the very next hand. Joshua, from St. Louis, came into the day with the smallest stack but managed to stay alive for a while and finish seventh for $18,188.

Matt Cannella knocked out Reginald Shawn Roberts, a two-time champion and the player with the most HPT experience of all the players at the nationally-televised final table. The business owner from Springfield, Missouri had to be satisfied with sixth place earnings of $21,525.

From O'Fallon, Illinois, Cannella complimented HPT's newest Missouri stop. "I couldn't be more pleased with this property... It's just a great facility." No wonder he liked the venue, as the advertising executive took ninth place in a side event earlier in the series and finished fifth in the Main Event for $27,444.

Engineer Ron Amos enjoyed his time at the St. Charles resort casino and also complimented the venue."The Ameristar property is awesome," he said. "The rooms are fantastic and it's been a really great experience." He was playing to put his two kids through college. Fourth place was worth $36,592.

The Olathe, Kansas resident Jeffrey Brin flopped a full house, went all-in, and was called by Culberson’s bigger full house. He is likely to have nightmares about the way he was knocked out, but these things happen in poker. The carpet store owner took home $52,466.

At the start of heads up play, Culberson had almost four times as many chips as his opponent, Michael Ross. In no time, however, Ross negated the chip deficit and evened the stacks. He lost all the chips even faster than he earned them, however, as the two players who were nearly even got all the chips in the middle. Culberson’s Aces stood up to win against Ross' queens. Ross lost the reminder of his stack on the very next hand. For second place he won $78,350.

Matt Culberson, the local baseball instructor, invested $375 into Heartland Poker Tour's Main Event at Ameristar Casino Resort Spa in St. Charles. He beat a tough field in the nationally-televised tournament, earning $129,147 for his efforts and enjoyed a tremendous run through the nearly 400-player strong field!