Tae Gon Kim wins World Series of Poker Circuit Stop At The Bike

Tae Gon Kim – Photo credit: WSOP circuit

Tae Gon Kim was crowned the winner World Series of Poker Circuit Main Event on March 10th at the Bicycle Casino in Bell Gardens, California in the Los Angeles area. Originally from Providence, Rhode Island, he took home the grand prize worth $111,075 along with his first gold ring. He made up his second cash on record to take his career earnings to $113,700.

Kim is primarily a cash game player in LA, but after this result he might consider playing in more tournaments. “Yes, in any case! How could I not play more tournaments after this,” Kim told the WSOP circuit Reporter after the win. He continued with a joke about his win: “It will probably be donated back to the cash game pool in Los Angeles. Hopefully not, but yeah that’s where it’s going, cash tables.”

The $1,700 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em tournament had a prize pool worth $512,070 thanks to two starting flights with a total of 338 entries. The top 54 players all cashed in at least $2,415 in prize money. Those 54 players returned for Day 2 and the tournament came out victorious a day early after 15 hours of play.

The final table was reached just after 8pm and there were three eliminations in the first two hours of play, including eight-time ring (as well as a gold bracelet) winner Sean Yu, who finished in seventh place. Kim was in control of the chip lead at this point, but Santiago Cortijo passed him to take the lead in the four-handed game. Kim then defeated Mats Gavatin in fourth place to climb back to the top of the chip counts.

When heads-up play began, Kim held 6,145,000 against Cortijo’s 3,995,000. Only one all-in hand was played between them, which took place just before 2am. Cortijo moved all in and held 84and Kim had covered him and was holding A9. The board ran out of 107710Qand that was it for Cortijo, who took home $68,655 in prize money thanks to his good run in the tournament.

A few other notable figures to cash in the event were David Rosenbloom (14th), Lika Gerasimova (15th), Robert Nativadad (24th), Benjamin Moom (33rd), Phil Laak (38th), Shane Martin (39th), Michael Wasserman (43rd) and David Uvayadov (54th).

Here’s a look at the payouts awarded at the final table:

The next WSOP circuit The event is taking place at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Tulsa, Oklahoma and runs through March 20th. The $1,700 buy-in Main Event starts on Friday, March 17th. You can check out the full schedule for the tournament series right here.