League Championship
Tournament Report
5/6/06 by Brook
Lyter
 Jeremy
Heller
from
Ruttles (St. Peter,
MN) is the big
winner of the Minnesota Poker League 10-week
League Championship Tournament, outlasting
Jerry Fuhrer from
Primetime Food &
Spirits-Breezy Point. Heller earned a seat to
the Main Event of the 2006 World Series of
Poker beginning July 28th.
A total of 156 players had
qualified for the event, which was the
culmination of a 10-week free poker league
among 73 participating bars scattered across
the state. 66 players qualified directly by
winning their individual leagues and another
90 players qualified through regional playoff
tourneys.
 You could sense the level of
excitement and anticipation from the players
during registration. Individual league
champs claimed their official MPL League
Champion Medallions, and the 141 players
present settled in for a long day of poker.
We saw aggressive play from
the get go, and early on two tables in
particular were really getting after it. It
seemed every two minutes there was an all in
with a call. One interesting hand on table 5
was between Kipp Crabb (Park Rapids Eagles
Club) A-K, Tom Holden (Red Wing Golf Club)
Q-Q, and Ben Boldt (pictured right)
 Thirsty Moose (Hibbing)
K-J. Tom raised to 1,000 preflop from the
button and was called by both players. The
flop was 3-K-Q, Giving Tom a set of Queens and
Kipp top pair/top kicker. Kipp checked the
flop Ben bet 500 into Tom which he promptly
raised to 2,000. Kipp and Ben both called.
When the turn brought a K the fuse was lit and
all players eventually got all their chips in,
making for the biggest pot early in the
tournament. Unfortunately for Tom, a Jack
fell on the river to make a miracle two-outer
save for Ben, giving him Kings over Jacks to
beet Tom’s Queens over Kings…Ben dragged about
a 30,000 pot and was the early chip leader.
Unfortunately for Ben he was unable to
maintain that chip count for long and found
himself up and down all afternoon until he
finally busted out later in the day.
The chip leaders going into the first break (after 2 hours of
play) were Phil Barry-Bullpen (Adrian) with
33k and Clay Lipke-Primetime Food & Spirits
(Breezy Point). Erik Brunkow-Marie’s Casual
Dining (Redwing) doubled up through Sam
Hanson-Z103 Bar & Grill (Fergus Falls) when he
flopped a set of 10’s to Sam’s A-Q to a board
of A-Q-10. Sam did not improve and Eric
joined the chip leaders with 24k.
Greg Anderson, League Champ
from Stampede Saloon in Hewitt, and big winner
of the the fall 10-week contest had qualified
for this tournament and was looking forward to
taking a shot at another championship.
Unfortunately for Greg he wasn’t catching any
cards and ended up busting out.
 Certainly
one of the main characters of this tournament
turned out
 to be none other than Kevin Mitshke
(pictured left)-Elkhorn
Inn (Westbrook). Kevin has a striking
resemblance to tournament professional Chris
“Jesus” Ferguson and he was a serious chip
mover and aggressive player in this
tournament. Kevin probably knocked out more
players than Mike Tyson in his career. He was
on a serious roll and was the beneficiary of
some lucky hands. When Jeremy Binner-Slippery’s (Wabasha) bet into him with
Q-J to a J-7-7 board, Kevin’s A-7 held up to
win the biggest pot at that stage of the
tournament. Kevin held the chip lead for
quite a while on a table that featured 3 of
the top 4 chip stacks going into the dinner
break (4:30pm). Those players were Jeremy
Heller Ruttles-St. Peter and Mark Fraki
(pictured right)-Thumper Pond-Ottertail. With 90.5k Jeremy was
just behind Kevin’s 92k and Mark’s 60k
stacks (49 players left).
Meanwhile, two familiar
players were beginning to make their moves in
the tournament.
Mike Henry, League Champ at
Boxers Bar & Grill-Faribault and Troy Salo,
Thumper Pond Resort-Ottertail. Both of these
players made the final table at the Fall 2005
Championship Tournament and were starting to
accumulate chips once again in this one.
 When
we were down to 38 players, Kari Weibel
(pictured right),
Lemay’s Grill-Lake Crystal, doubled up through
Kevin Mitschke when her A-8 turned and rivered
8’s for trips. Shortly after that we
witnessed the hand of the tournament involving
Kari Weibel, Kevin Mitschke & Jeremy Heller.
Kari moved all-in preflop with A-Jd and got
called by Kevin A-5o. Jeremy Heller K-K
re-raised to create a side pot between he and
Kevin. Kevin called and the flop came down
2h-3-7h. A large crowd quickly gathered
around to witness these two chip leaders going
to war. Jeremy pushed the action on each
street and got called all the way, resulting
in a 225,000 total pot and a monster chip
stack of over 340k. Heller would not
relinquish this lead.
 The action continued at a
feverish pace and time seemed to go by very
fast and at 8:30pm the final table was set
when Robert Illg, Z103 Bar & Grill-Fergus
Falls busted to Jeremy Heller.
With the final table ready
to go, the players were introduced and
spectators and fans cheered them on. The play
slowed considerably, consisting mostly of
position raises and blind-steals. Finally we
saw a couple of flops and had some action.
An incredible feat was
recognized: both Mike Henry (left) and Troy Salo made
their second championship final table. Both
had made the fall league championship final
table and came close to winning a trip to the
Bahamas last January to play in the
World
Poker Tour. Both players wanted nothing more
than to win this tournament! Unfortunately
for both of them, it just didn’t work out.
Mike busted in 7th place and Troy
finished 3rd. Ironically, both
finished exactly one place higher than their
first final tables.
| Final
Table Players |
| Seat # |
Name |
Bar |
Chip
Stack |
| 1 |
Aaron
Gunderson |
Primetime
Food & Spirits-Breezy Point |
56k |
| 2 |
Jerry
Fuhrer |
Primetime
Food & Spirits-Breezy Point |
89k |
| 3 |
Mike
Henry |
Boxers
Bar & Grill-Faribault |
84.5k |
| 4 |
Josh
Winter |
Parkers
Sports-Staples |
21k |
| 5 |
Randy
Anderson |
Amor
Rumors |
64.5k |
| 6 |
Jeremy
Heller |
Ruttles-St.Peter |
360k |
| 7 |
Bodie
Rongelin |
Alley Cat
Lanes-Ortonville |
233.5k |
| 8 |
Josh
Lueck |
Front
Street Bar & Grill-Morgan |
72.5k |
| 9 |
Mark
Fraki |
Thumper
Pond Resort-Ottertail |
240.5k |
| 10 |
Troy Salo |
Thumper
Pond Resort-Ottertail |
205.5k |
 Aaron Gunderson, Primetime
Food & Spirits-Breezy Point, came in
short-stacked but managed to survive quite a
while and doubled up several times before
finally being eliminated in 6th
place. Troy Salo was aggressive and
picked up a lot of blinds to build a chip
stack and for a short time he was the overall
chip leader. Once we were 3-handed, the
big prize was really within reach for all
remaining players as the chip counts were very
close to even between Troy Salo, Jerry Fuhrer
(pictured left below),
& Jeremy Heller.
With the blinds at 20k/40k,
Jeremy raised 120k pre-flop with J-9c and got
called by Troy with pocket 8’s. The board
came 4-5-4 with 2 clubs. Jeremy checked and
Troy moved in for the rest of his chips.
Jeremy called having two overcards and a flush
draw. The turn was a 9 and Troy was
eliminated in the hand. It was a tough blow
to Troy, coming very close yet again at a MPL
championship tournament. Troy’s consolation
prize was an I-pod Nano, a padded rail poker
table and Vikings tickets. The result of the
hand put Jeremy in the chip lead with 800k to
Jerry’s 520k.
 The
heads-up play lasted for approximately 40
minutes. Both players often raised the
minimum in position and it often resulted in a
fold pre-flop. We witnessed about six or
seven flops which resulted in larger
exchanges, with Jeremy coming out on top going
into the final hand. Jeremy increased his
chip lead to about 1 million to Jerry’s 400k.
Jeremy limped in with pocket Jacks and Jerry
checked the option. The flop was K-8-K, Jerry
moved-in, and Jeremy immediately called. The
turn was a 5 and the river was a 7, giving
Jeremy the big win.
Jerry had a great run on the
final table but came up just short. His
runner up prize included a $550 buy-in to a
Heartland Poker Tour event of his choice later
this year plus Vikings tickets and other
merchandise. Hopefully he can make the
best of his HPT
opportunity.
Jeremy was in awe of the
victory and appeared stunned. He had an
absolutely amazing tournament from start to
finish. His play was very impressive and we
look forward to watching him play at this
year’s World Series of Poker televised on
ESPN.
Jeremy Heller played at
Ruttles, a restaurant/bar in St. Peter, about
10 miles north of Mankato. Ruttles is one of
the smaller sites in the Minnesota Poker
League network of bars and now has a state
champion to be proud of. We wish Jeremy the
best of luck.
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