Josh Adkins Wins WPT bestbet Bounty Scramble For $331,480

Season XVIII of the World Poker Tour (WPT) stopped in Florida for the WPT bestbet Bounty Scramble. The tournament saw 349 entrants register through the two opening flights, and topping them all was 26-year-old Josh Adkins (cover image).

Adkins, who was playing his first-ever WPT event, had a debut he is unlikely to forget anytime soon as he went home $331,480 richer after defeating Tan Nguyen heads-up for the title. Along with the top prize, Adkins earned a seat worth $15,000 into the season-ending WPT Tournament of Champions.

Adkins had a mere $23,000 in live winnings before this event and had apparently predicted his win! He informed tournament reporters, “It’s a funny story, I kind of called my shot in this. I have text messages of me saying, ‘I’m going to go win the $5K in Jax.’ And now it just happened. It’s indescribable.”

There was a lot of world-class talent present at the event and among the top 45 places that made it in the money were the likes of Joe McKeehen (9th for $31,648), Howard Mash (10th for $31,648), Larry Greenberg (14th for $20,523), Ian O’Hara (19th for $14,001), Jessica Dawley (20th for $14,001), Sam Panzica (22nd for $11,790), Scott Stewart (28th for $10,061), Indian-origin player Raj Vohra (30th for $10,061), and Jake Schwartz (40th for $8,700).

Carlos Guerrero bubbled the six-handed final table, finishing seventh for $51,274.

Final Table Chip Counts

1. Josh Kay – 4,075,000
2. Josh Adkins – 3,220,000
3. Tan Nguyen – 2,690,000
4. Jonathan Cronin – 1,780,000
5. Jason Lee – 1,465,000
6. Jeff Cunningham – 690,000

Final Table Recap

Jeff Cunningham was the shortest stack at the final table and hit the rail on just the fourth hand of the play. Cunningham moved all-in holding , and Josh Kay called showing . The board did bring an ace, but Kay’s higher kicker won him the pot.

After 35 hands of traded chips, WPTDeepStacks champion Jonathan Cronin jammed with , and Kay woke up with pocket kings to make the easy call. Kay further clipped a set on the board, and Cronin was knocked out in fifth place.

After that, Jason Lee moved in from the small blind holding , and next to act, Kay looked him up with . Kay spiked a two pair on the board, eliminating Lee in fourth place.

Kay seemed to be unstoppable so far, but once his downswing started, it carried through all the way till he had hit the rail in third place. The hand in question saw Kay’s flopped two pairs getting cracked by Nguyen’s flopped three-of-a-kind.

With that, the heads-up match between Adkins and Nguyen got going with both almost evenly placed.

On the final hand of the event, Nguyen opened, Adkins 3-bet, Nguyen 4-bet shoved, and Adkins snap-called.

Josh Adkins

Tan Nguyen

Nguyen was looking in good shape to win the monster pot before Adkins got lucky and spiked a queen on the flop to win the title.

Final Table Results

1. Josh Adkins – $331,480*
2. Tan Nguyen – $210,988
3. Josh Kay – $155,340
4. Jason Lee – $115,691
5. Jonathan Cronin – $87,170
6. Jeff Cunningham – $66,457

*includes a seat into WPT Tournament of Champions

Content and Images Courtesy: WPT