Stephen Kehoe Wins $269,900 in WPT Global Satellite
Wynn Resorts’ World Poker Tour (WPT) World Championship hosted a live event with the largest guarantee in the history of poker. Wynn and WPT had a $15 million guarantee and attracted 2,960 players who formed a $29,008,000 prize pool.
Stephen Kehoe signed up for the event and paid $10,000 since he had spent $550 to win a WPT Global seat. WPT Global’s $550 buy-in satellites awarded participants $2,000 for their travel expenses and the WPT World Championship seats. Kehoe saw one of the satellites’ advertisements and tried his luck.
Unfortunately, Stephen Kehoe’s first attempt failed, and he took another shot that earned him a package that prompted him to prepare to compete in one of his career’s largest live poker events. Kehoe won the 2022 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event and has experience in high-stakes live tournaments.
The poker pro had 25,000 chips early on Day 1C. He later increased to 722,000 when the day’s action ended. He was among the leading 20 players out of the 513 who survived that day.
Day 2 wasn’t a walk in the park for Kehoe as he ended it with 711,000 chips. Odds started favoring him on Day 3 when he increased his stack to 1,470,000 chips. Tony Dunst and Kat Klassen bust the money bubble on the same day and, on the one hand, assuring the remaining players of winning at least $17,000.
Michael Gathy’s Elimination
Day 4 had a lot of drama as Kehoe ended Michael Gathy’s (four-time WSOP bracelet champion) run in the 118th position. The latter put his chips on the jack-six-four-three board, which revealed two clubs, and the formerly used queen-jack of clubs to call and beat his opponent’s jack-ten.
Kehoe used pocket tens to make a 250,000 open in the 25th level with blinds 75,000/125,000/125,000a. Nissim Vaknin made a big blind 1,130,000 three-bet and called all-in later as Kehoe made a 2,450,000-effective shove.
Vaknin’s pocket kings dominated on the queen-high board, thus leaving Kehoe with 38 big blinds. The latter held 3,125,000 chips, equal to 16 big blinds, when Day 4’s action ended.
Kehoe Doubles Through Benny Glaser
Kehoe kicked off Day 5 using ace-king to face Benny Glaser’s pocket tens. Soheb Porbandarwala took part in a tough battle for the blinds that prevented a comeback. Kehoe’s king-deuce lost to his rival’s jack-ten and opted to raise 80 percent of his chips rather than go all-in.
This strategy helped him rebuild his stack. Still, he made a 5,300,000 raise from the button in the 200,000/400,000/400,000a level and remained with a 500,000 stack. He opted to call after Michael Rocco set him all in.
Rocco had a pair of black queens, and Kehoe held king-jack. The former got a set from a queen on the flop that left the latter drawing a gutshot straight which he missed and left the tournament in 14th place with $269,900.
Kehoe plans to compete in many $10,000 buy-in tournaments, which he believes he will win at WPT Global. In an interview after the event, he revealed that he would be a regular on WPT Global since he occasionally played satellites in the past.
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