There are times at major tournament final tables where there are multiple changes at the top of the leaderboard but there are also times where players go wire-to-wire to claim victory. John Kulp did the latter today, as he could not be stopped once the Poker Night in America Pittsburgh Poker Open Main Event final table came together.
That final table redrew at ten players last night and Kulp then scored every knockout to bring the field to it’s final five. Those final five players then return to play down to a winner on the PNIA live stream and Kulp picked up where he left off.
From the first hand of the day when he eliminated Jay Kelley with top set against Kelley’s top two pair, it looked like the rest of the table had their work cut out for them. In that rhetorical assessment, they were correct, as Kulp then continued to send players to rail at a quick pace. Eventually, it was John Kulp and Jonathan Love remaining and their road to a heads up battle for this PNIA PPO Main Event title could not have been more different.
While Kulp was headlining most of the action, Love was relatively under the radar. His experiences in this kind of spot were not though, as Love finished runner-up in this PPO Main Event last spring. Unfortunately for him, he was unable to avoid that fate for a second straight year, as Kulp’s hot run continued heads up and earned him his first major tournament title.
Kulp entered heads up play against Jonathan Love with a massive chip advantage, one that he never relinquished before winning a flip to clinch the Main Event title. The Pittsburgh native will take home $69,083 for his victory, the largest tournament score of his career. A full recap of the event can be found on the Pittsburgh Poker Open blog.
John Kulp is the most recent PNIA Main Event champion but in a week’s time, another will be crowned. Poker Night in America shoots across the state of Pennsylvania to the brand new Poker Night in America Poker Room at SugarHouse Casino for more high stakes cash game action and another $1,100 buy-in Main Event, with a full series schedule found here.