Andy Rubinberg wins MSPT Season 9 at Canterbury Park for $179,776

(PRESS RELEASE) -- The MSPT Season 9 Finale at Canterbury Park - Racetrack & Card Casino drew 977 entries, creating a $977,000 total prize pool and making it by far the largest major poker tournament ($1K+ buy-in) in Minnesota history. In the end it was Illinois’ Andy Rubinberg coming out on top to win a $179,776 first-place prize and his second MSPT title.

With the win, Rubinberg moved into the No. 10 spot on the MSPT’s all-time money list with $386,537 in earnings. His other title came back in 2016 when he won the MSPT Wisconsin State Poker Championship for $120,808.

“This is wonderful. Back in 2016 was my first big win, but this one confirms my game,” said Rubinberg, who was the short stack with 27 players remaining. “2016 was such a big year for me. I traveled in 2017 and lost money. A lot of travel in 2018 and losing money, I’ve been down all year. I’ve been working so hard, working with Chip Leader Coaching, studying, I felt so much more confident going into this final table and just feel I played so much better. Hard work pays off.”

He continued, “This was a tough field, but aside from being such a big field a lot of big pros came. I knew if I could win this one it would mean something. Outside of Vegas, this might’ve been the toughest field ever.”

For Rubinberg, this was his 11th MSPT Main Event cash and third final table, which includes two wins and a runner-up finish.

Final table results
1 Andrew Rubinberg (Chicago, IL) $179,776
2 Ronnie Lamb (Denver, CO) $110,704
3 Joel Klipping (Red Lake Falls, MN) $81,278
4 Jesse Rockowitz (Fairmont, MN) $61,502
5 Shawn Douglass (Fridley, MN) $46,363
6 Tom Sadowski (Bloomington, MN) $35,009
7 Mike Schneider (Minneapolis, MN) $27,440
8 Jovan Sudar (Omaha, NE) $21,762
9 Stuart Luhm (Plymouth, MN) $17,037
10 Jason Bender (Keota, IA) $13,247

Day 2 saw 148 players return to action, but with only 99 slated to get paid nearly a third of them left empty-handed, including 2015 MSPT Wisconsin State Poker Champ Ben Wiora, poker pro Jeff Fielder, three-time MSPT champ Carl Carodenuto and bubble boy Larry Ormson.