California resident Casey Sandretto earns his first poker title and a massive pot
Sacramento resident Casey Sandretto secured his first title on the World Poker Tour (WPT) at the ninth installment of the WPT Rolling Thunder event at Thunder Valley Casino Resort on Tuesday. He earned a place on the Mike Sexton WPT Champions Cup, a seat at the WPT World Championship, and the $246,600 winner’s prize.
“Feels pretty great,” said Sandretto after his achievement. “This is my first live tournament win… so to have it at Thunder Valley with the best poker room in the country, in my opinion, and Ben Erwin being a superstar, and with WPT being the most prestigious tournament series, this is great, couldn’t have been any better.”
Sandretto outlasted a field of 458 players, creating a prize pool of $1,465,600 split among the top 58 finishers. Michael Kinney, the 2004 WPT Champion, came up just short of his second title after negotiating a chop with Sandretto just after heads-up play began while the two would compete for the title.
Kinney took a $235,000 payout for second place and was preceded by Travis Egbert (3rd for $140,000), Yunkyu Song (4th for $105,000), Cody Wiegmann (5th for $78,000) and Brock Wilson (6th for $60,000).
WPT Champion Ryan Riess finished just outside the bubble in 59th place. Other notable players cashing at the event were 2023 WPT World Championship winner Dan Sepiol (26th place), 2022 WPT Prime Champion Stephen Song (13th place) and WPT Champion Soheb Porbandarwala (11th place).
The next event for the WPT Champions Cup is the WPT Voyage on Virgin Voyages Valiant Lady, which sets sail from Miami on March 31 with the $1,000,000 guaranteed Championship event running from April 1-3.
