Wisconsin Player Joe Kuether Wins Arizona State Poker Championship
Joe Kuether, a poker player from Wisconsin, has become the champion of the 9th edition of the Annual Arizona State Poker Championship, which was held at Talking Stick Resort at Scottsdale in Arizona. He defeated an impressive field of 1,299 players to win a large first-place prize of $246,161.
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The final table results are as follows. As previously mentioned, Joe Kuether collected the first-place prize of $246,161 as the champion of the event. The runner-up Kelly Minkin carried home the second-place prize of $151,983. The players who finished third, fourth, and fifth were Daniel Hirleman, Justin Riches, and Zachary Kottler, who won prizes of $116,910, $88,982, and $77,940, respectively. The players who finished sixth, seventh, and eighth were Jason Bidwel, Ed Clark, and Nidel Salem, who won $64,950, $51,960, and $38,970, respectively. The players who finished ninth and tenth were Dave Kaminsky and Matthew Kursar, who won $25,980 and $19,485, respectively.
The $1080 event distributed payouts among the top 130 players. A number of globally renowned professional poker players arrived at Scottsdale, Arizona to take part in this event, and one of them was Phil Hellmuth, the winner of 13 World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelets. Hellmuth, however, failed to finish in the cash. But noteworthy poker pros such as John Cernuto, Dan Heimiller, David Plastik, Jake Balsiger, and Billy Kopp won cash prizes in this tournament although they failed to make it to the final table.
Speaking about his latest poker achievement, Kuether said: “Pretty amazing. I played all three starting days so it was actually a pretty long grind for a 1k, so it feels pretty great to end up winning it.” He also said that this is the largest pot he has won in the course of his poker career.
Kuether, who started playing poker a few years back, has established a record by winning as much as $1.7 million in live poker tournaments. In March 2012, he won the first place prize of $111,104 in the WSOP Circuit Rincon Main Event.
When asked by PokerNews how he felt to be one of the brightest upcoming stars in the poker world, he humbly answered: “Not really sure how to answer this one, sorry. But obviously feels good.”
Kuether will also be one of the players who will be taking part in the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open, a major live poker tournament, which is scheduled to be held at the end of this month.
