Ren Lin Wins Inaugural Texas Poker Open Main Event

The inaugural Texas Poker Open Main Event is in the books and the honor of being the tournament’s first-ever winner belongs to Ren Lin, who earned $400,000 for his achievement.

Lin nabbed 400 PokerGO Tour points for the victory, which, when the leader board is updated, should put him just on the outside of the top 20 for this season. It is his third career PokerGO Tour (PGT) title and 38^th career cash. Lin now has over $11 million in lifetime live tournament earnings and $5.3 million on the Tour.

Going into Monday’s action, Lin wasn’t in great shape, holding one of the smaller stacks of the 15 players remaining. Yunkyu Song was far and away the chip leader with 11.050 million chips, followed by Miguel Use with 4.750 million. For comparison, Lin had just 1.650 million.

He did double-up early to give himself some breathing room and was then able to pick up an uncontested pot worth millions to climb to 7.750 million chips. Going into the nine-handed final table, Ren Lin was up to second place with 7.550 million chips, still only half of Song’s 15.150 million.

Lin busted players in 7^th and 5^th place to get up to 11.400 million, but again, Song was still well ahead. Shortly after four-handed play started, Lin made a huge move, picking off Song’s bluff on the river to overtake him for the lead, just barely.

Song regained the lead, but then Lin put the hammer down, out-flopping him with a boat-over-boat to take a massive chip lead. Lin was up to 22.525 million, while Song fell to 7.375 million. Lin eventually made it to over 30 million and looked like he was going to run away with the title, but Daniel Moran proceeded to eliminate Song in 4^th place and Jonathan Tamayo in 3^rd to go into heads-up play just slightly behind Lin, 20.625 million to 23.475 million.

And then, within minutes, it was all over. Lin raised to 700,000 pre-flop, Moran three-bet to 2.800 million, and Song responded with another raise to 6.500 million. Undaunted, Moran shoved and Lin called. Moran showed pocket Tens, but Lin had pocket Jacks – it’s no wonder they were so eager to get their chips in the pot. Nothing helped Moran and Lin flopped a set for good measure to take down the Texas Poker Open Main Event.