Day 3 of the Cherokee Main Event has come to a close after nine hours of play. A day that began with 17 players ended with one champion.
Emerging as the winner was Jared Ingles, taking home the grand prize of $300,736 and his first World Series of Poker Circuit Ring after he defeated a field of 1,213 that generated a prizepool of $1,837,695. Ingles, from the small town of Prospect, Louisiana, had amassed over $1 million in career earnings before this tournament, including nearly $600,000 in WSOP cashes. This win is the largest score of his career as his largest career cash prior to this was for $138,285 for a 56th place finish in the 2010 WSOP Main Event.
A Word With the Winner
“I am 34 now, so I have been grinding for over half my life,” said Ingles after his win, reflecting upon the dedication he has given to poker from a young age. “I am mainly a cash game player but I have been firing this tournaments for a long time and finally was able to close one out.”
“I am going to take off from playing now for a while until the series in the summer” when discussing his near future poker plans.
When discussing how the Cherokee Main Event went and when he knew he had a serious shot to win, Ingles exuded confidence. “I knew I was the favorite coming in to today, 7th out of 17. I knew I had a great equity spot from the start, so there was not really a single moment.”
Ingles said that the two hands that he will remember most from the win were actually two folds. “I laid down trip queens (k-q) in a spot where it was a really strong hand (board was q-q-4-10-7) when he check-raised me on the river. And in another hand I folded ace-queen to a 17 big blind shove and that’s a real nitty fold but that was literally the only player I am folding that to.” Ingles would go on to accumulate and hold a strong chip lead for much of the day and he believed those key folds kept him in that good position to win the ring.
Action of the Day
Day 3 began with 17 players and it would take an entire level to lose the first player of the day, as play was cautious to start off. Eventually the eliminations started to come steadily until the final table was reached.
Well-known North Carolina player Marshall White was the first to go from the final table after he was eliminated in 9th place.
Rohit Kwatra then hit the rail in 8th place as he amazingly finished in the exact same spot as he did in the December Cherokee Main Event.
Four-time circuit ring winner John Gallaher bowed out in 7th a few minutes later as he added another nice Cherokee score to his resume.
In 6th place Adam Ney came up short in his attempt to equal or better his February Cherokee Main Event where he finished in 2nd place but he nevertheless added the impressive feat of back-to-back Cherokee Main Event final tables in the span of only 7 weeks apart.
Fikret Kovac made his third Cherokee Main Event final table and his run ended in 5th place, the same place as his finish in December of 2019, in the first hand after dinner break.
Max Le was the next to go in 4th place as he made the largest score of his career by a large margin as he was beaten in a brutal hand where his turned flush was destroyed by a rivered full boat.
Three-handed play did not last long as Robert Hover of Massachusetts was sent away in third place, the same finish he had in the WSOPC Turning Stone Main Event in March.
Heads-up play began with Changlong Zeng, who began the day as the big chip-leader, having a slight chip lead (54% of the chips) over Ingles and was on the doorstep of the title when he held pocket threes vs the ace-king of Ingles but Ingles would find a king on the river to take the overwhelming chip lead and then finish off the contest a few hands later.
Final Table Results:
1st: Jared Ingles ($300,736)
2nd: Changlong Zeng ($185,859)
3rd: Robert Hover ($140,648)
4th: Max Le ($107,339)
5th: Fikret Kovac ($82,622)
6th: Adam Ney ($64,136)
7th: John Gallaher ($50,236)
8th: Rohit Kwatra ($39,689)
9th: Marshall White ($31,634)
Full Results
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