Jason Koon became the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open (SHRPO) series champion on Tuesday night as he won the $5250 buy-in SHRPO Championship, taking $1 million for the win.
Koon fought off 853 players to take the title, money and the Seminole Hard Rock’s token guitar pick trophy.
The SHRPO Championship is part of what the Seminole Hard Rock calls The Big 4 in which the final tables of four events play out alongside each other in front of a live audience as well as it all being filmed for Poker Night in America.
The other events that make up The Big 4 are a $25,500 High Roller, a $2650 Freeze-Out and a $1100 Re-Entry tournament.
On winning Koon said “I feel fantastic. I mean, it’s a great result, it’s a lot of money, and I got to play heads-up with my buddy … It’s a special moment.”
Koon was referencing the fact that he ended up going head to head against his long time friend and former roommate Seth Davies—who finished as runner up and pocketed $575,000 after they both faced off on the final table.
Koon said: “[Seth] and I were laughing about the opportunity, and the next thing you know, we’re sitting across the table from each other with the trophy sitting in between us, so it’s a really surreal moment.”
He went on to say about the win, “It’s something that I reminded myself to burn into my brain, so on rough days I can think about this awesome day.”
For Koon this is another great win to round out his summer as earlier he won the Bellagio $25,000 High Roller 7 for $514,900. He also cashed four times at this year’s World Series of Poker.
The final table
Between them all, the final nine had nearly $13 million dollars in prize winnings between them—but the $1 million prize money would be the biggest win of all their careers.
The final table results were:
1. Jason Koon – $1,000,000
2. Seth Davies – $575,000
3. Tim Burt – $310,000
4. Roman Valerstein $220,000
5. Tom Midena – $180,000
6. Joe Serock – $150,000
7. Paul Balzano – $125,000
8. Ryan Fair – $100,000
9. Zo Karim – $75,000
In addition to Koon, other winners of The Big 4 were Marvin Rettenmaier who won the $25,500 High Roller for $787,497,Bradley Snider that took down the $2650 Freeze-Out for $246,400 and Hollywood Florida’s own Ruslan Dykshteyn who won the $1100 Re-Entry for $151,000.
Check out the winners interview with Jason Koon and his buddy and runner up Seth Davies below.
