The World Poker Tour bang out another champion, the third in a week, as Tony Ruberto wins title number two at WPT Maryland Live!
Why is it easier to win a World Poker Tour (WPT) Main Event title than a PokerStars European Poker Tour (EPT) title?
Are the European players of a higher calibre?
Variance?
Field size?
Answers on a postcard, please.
Only Victoria Coren-Mitchell has ever won two EPT’s in 14-years. Multiple WPT Champions come along as rapidly as banchan in a Korean restaurant, only less smelly.
The latest repeat champion is Tony Ruberto.
The man who has now earned more than $3.5m in live tournament winnings, won his first title in 2011 when he beat 393 entrants, including Sam Soverel, heads-up, to bank the $325,928 first prize in Jacksonville.
Seven years later, he has done it again.
Ruberto was the last man sitting on his butthole from a field of 554 people in the $3,500 buy-in WPT Main Event at Maryland Live! after overcoming a final table including the former November Niner, Jeremy Ausmus, and WSOP bracelet winners Will Givens and Shankar Pillai.
Ausmus, in particular, came into this tournament in pistol-whipping fashion after finishing runner-up to Brandon Eisen in the recent $5,250 buy-in Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open (SHRPO) Championship in Hollywood for over half a million dollars, only to fall in third in this one.
Ruberto had to take care of Pillai during a heads-up match-up he began as a 4.5-1 leader. Pillai did double up once thanks to a flush beating a set, but there was no forward momentum beyond that hand with Ruberto sealing the deal when the pair got it in on the flop with Pillai ahead with top pair and Ruberto chasing a flush draw that got there on the river.
The win is Ruberto’s 11th of his career.
His most significant score came during the CAD 5,300 buy-in partypoker MILLIONS North American earlier this year where he earned $781,018 for finishing third behind Darryll Fish and Taylor Black.
In August, Ruberto finished 3/755 in the $3,700 buy-in WPT Choctaw Main Event for $166,605.
Here are the final table results.
It’s the first time in his 12-year career that he has breached the seven-figure mark in annual earnings before tax, makeup, swaps, exchanges, bits, pieces and all that jazz.
Final Table Results
1. Tony Ruberto – $344,755*
2. Shankar Pillai – $220,780
3. Jeremy Ausmus – $162,597
4. Will Givens – $121,112
5. Aaron Pinson – $91,230
6. Mark Sandness – $69,609
*Includes a $15k seat in the Tournament of Champions
Four WPT Main Event stops remain this side of a Santa sledging, including Jacksonville (October), Montreal (October), Hollywood (November), and Las Vegas (December).
