He’s now approaching $7 million in lifetime poker tournament cash winnings
Andrew Rodgers has emerged as the championship winner, taking the top prize at the 2024 Card Player Poker Tour Venetian $1,600 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em main event. He earns the $103,936 top prize after striking a heads-up deal with Ankush Mandavia ($95,149) to secure the win.
The field of 458 players would split a prize pool of $650,360 after smashing the tournament’s $400,000 guarantee. “It was a chop, so I didn’t exactly get to close it out, but yeah, it feels good,” said Rodgers after beating his largest live tournament payday of $62,319 earned as runner-up at a DeepStack Extravaganza $600 buy-in event at The Venetian in 2022.
A total of 59 players would reach Day 2, all guaranteed to take home at least $3,391. The final table started with Dan Sepiol as the chip leader, with Rodgers in seventh place. Edward Holstein (9th for $11,790) and Dan Ciltan (8th for $14,865) were the first to the rail.
Zachary Donovan earned $19,046 for seventh place, and Jeremy Becker’s run would end in sixth place for $24,788. Zichuan Huang’s journey for the title would see him awarded $32,766 in fifth place after his A-10 couldn’t catch the pocket eights of Richard Collins.
Rodgers’ pocket kings would hold up against Sepiol’s A-K after a huge preflop battle would send him home in fourth place for $43,976. He would eliminate Collins next, giving him his career-best payday of $59,914 for third place.
The final two players would then discuss a deal, with Rodgers holding an 11,580,000 to 6,755,000 chip lead over Mandavia.
Rodgers secured the win, taking him over $6.6 million in lifetime live tournament earnings.
