Kansas City man wins $830,000 pot at regional poker tourney

A Kansas City businessman sits atop the leaderboard at the World Series of Poker.

Early Wednesday morning at the Rio in Las Vegas, Grant Hinkle, who will turn 28 on Saturday, caught a full house and parlayed his $1,500 seat in the tournament to $831,462 in prize money in a regional World Series tournament.

“My wife and I had been looking at buying a new house the last couple of years,” he said. “This will definitely help.”

The self-described “marketing guy” at Archer Technologies in Kansas City now sits at the top of the World Series money-winnings leaderboard for 2008 and ranks 277th in the series’ all-time Power Ranking.

And he’s not the only family member with World Series credentials. Brother Blair Hinkle is ranked 439th.

Grant Hinkle, a Topeka native, graduated from the University of Kansas with a business degree.

He said this was his second entry in a World Series of Poker event, but the first time he made it to a final table.

Grant Hinkle said the grueling three-day game that wrapped up Wednesday morning is scheduled to be televised July 29 by ESPN.

By then, he said, he plans to have invested $10,000 of his winnings in a seat at the World Series finals, which are to be played in July and televised later this year.

Blair Hinkle earlier this year finished 11th at the Los Angeles Poker Classic and brought home $62,000 for that. He finished 520th in the WSOP main event last year.

Grant said his regular poker game is with a few friends in the Kansas City area or at area casino poker rooms. He said most of his home poker games are for buy-ins of $40 or $50.

Grant said his brother offered some pretty good advice for his winning play in Wednesday’s last hand.

Holding a 10 and a 4, he went all in on a bluff. The cards that turned up: 10-10-4-4-5.

Game over.

Kansas City

News Added: 05 June, 2008

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