James Gibson becomes the First Heartland Poker Champion from Canada

At the Grand Casino-Mille Lacs

ONAMIA, Minnesota – The Heartland Poker Tour (HPT) saw another historical marker as James Gibson became the first Canadian citizen to win the HPT televised poker tournament. James Gibson went heads up in the No Limit Texas Hold’em tournament against former HPT winner Soni Lo, but Gibson’s King/7 beat Lo’s Ace/8 for the final hand. Gibson won $77,720 in the Heartland Main Event at Grand Casino-Mille Lacs on Monday, August 27^th.

The marathon final table included a wide variety of poker players including a musician, ballet instructor, farmer, cab company owner and gas station owner. In the end, it was retired truck driver James Gibson who won the title as his poker playing buddies cheered him on from the front row.

“I had a dream about this last night” said Gibson. “I couldn’t sleep at all, but when I did, I dreamt of winning this tournament.”

Gibson went on to say that his victory and first place prize would go a long way to smoothing things over on the home front. “My wife’s been keeping a log of my poker wins and losses, including expenses. I’ve been running kind of bad lately, so this is going to really help.”

For a while, it did not look like anyone would ever win the tournament as the first six blind levels and several hours passed before any players were eliminated. When the tournament field was finally narrowed to three players, blinds had risen to a level deemed inappropriate by tournament directors. The level was capped to finish out the event.

“I really wanted to win this thing,” said 2^nd place finisher Lo, a diversity training instructor and ballet instructor. “I wanted to be the first ever two time champion on the HPT.”

In the end, it was not to be for Lo who entered the final table as a substantial short stack with only about 100,000 of the 2.1 million chips in play. Lo recently took a year off from playing poker to travel to Asia and remarked he is back with plans to focus more on his game.

This was not the first time Gibson and Lo had met on the Heartland Poker Tour. Sixteen months ago at HPT’s Shooting Star poker tournament, Gibson, his Canadian poker friend Jimmy Palenko, and Soni Lo all met at the final table in Mahnomen, Minnesota. On that day, Gibson busted on the TV bubble and finished 7th. Lo and Palenko tangled several memorable times on the TV table before Lo busted “Jimmy P” and went on to win the event.

Gibson avenged his buddy’s loss, having to storm back from a deep hole in the beginning. After losing a couple hands early, Gibson made a stand with pocket fives against the eventual fifth place finisher Keith Doering, the farmer from southern Minnesota who entered the day as chip leader. After his double up, Gibson showed great patience.

Things could have been much different for Doering had his pocket queens held up against pocket three’s midway through the final table. That hand crippled Doering who was in the midst of a phenomenal run. He entered the main event after a big win at the blackjack table early Sunday morning.

The final table capped a week long event at the Grand Casino Mille Lacs in central Minnesota. The main event was one of five events played throughout the week, with four preliminary events, including a bounty tournament. Players traveled from all over the U.S. and Canada.

Final Poker Tournament results:

Prize Pool – $296,000

Entrants to Main Event – 148

Tournament Buy in – $2000

Entrants to qualifiers – 512

• 1^st place – James Gibson $77,720 – Stonewall Manitoba Canada
• 2^nd place – Soni Penh Lo $38,860 – Bloomington MN
• 3^rd place – John Mckusick $24,981 – Minneapolis MN
• 4^th place – Jeremy Dresch $19,430 – Fridley MN
• 5^th place – Keith Doering $16,654 – Brownton MN
• 6^th place – Curt Hagen $13,879 – Ft Lauderdale FL

The Heartland Poker Tour will be busy this fall with upcoming events scheduled in Minnesota, South Dakota, Colorado, Iowa and Indiana. The year end event will be open to all registrants at the Majestic Star Casino in Gary, Indiana where the prize pool is expected to exceed $1,200,000.

Founded by Todd Anderson and Greg Lang in 2005, Heartland Poker Tour is built on a grass roots strategy, “Real People, Unreal Money”. HPT provides poker enthusiasts a televised Texas No Limit Hold’em poker tour with affordable buy-ins. HPT owns and operates the Heartland Poker League where poker players can build their skills through local weekly tournaments. HPT is currently in Season III and is viewed in over 60 million homes throughout the United States. For more information and a complete schedule of upcoming events, visit www.HeartlandPokerTour.com.

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