The turnout almost doubled the guaranteed prize pool, reaching $586,320
In 2024, the Mid-States Poker Tour Bally’s Black Hawk Showdown Series hosted a No-Limit Hold’em Main Event with a buy-in of $1,100 and a guaranteed prize pool of $300,000. The event drew 602 entries, almost doubling the guaranteed prize pool to a total of $586,320.
The top 65 players shared the prize pool, with the lion’s share going to the champion, Sherman Wu, a resident of Boulder, Colorado. Wu walked away with a substantial $123,059, marking his first cash win in a Mid-States Poker Tour tournament.
In addition to the cash, Wu also earned 840 Card Player Player of the Year points. This achievement propelled him to the 652nd position in the 2024 Player of the Year standings, presented by Global Poker.
The final day of the tournament saw the top 65 players, who were in the money, return to Bally’s Casino in Black Hawk to compete for the championship. Wu started the day among the big stacks, having accumulated the second-largest stack during the final starting flight of the event. By the time the final table was set, Wu held the fourth-largest chip stack.
Wu’s first final table knockout came when his pocket kings held up against Corey Dodd’s open-ended straight draw. Dodd finished in seventh place, earning $18,108. Wu continued his ascent up the leaderboard when his suited A-2 beat Matthew Rice’s 9-8, resulting in Rice’s fifth-place finish and a prize of $31,007.
Vladas Tamasauskas then entered the fray, picking up pocket kings against Thomas Fuller’s pocket queens. Fuller finished fourth, taking home $40,974. Tamasauskas then faced Paul Gibbons, whose pocket sixes couldn’t stand up to Tamasauskas’s pocket queens. Gibbons finished third, earning $55,046, and Tamasauskas took the chip lead into heads-up play.
In the final hand, Wu held 9-8 against Tamasauskas’s 2-2. The board ran out J-6-5-A-7, giving Wu a straight and the championship. Tamasauskas finished as the runner-up, earning $75,538 and bringing his total recorded tournament earnings to nearly $3.2 million.
