No Student Loan Debt for WPT Champ Matt Juttelstad

Matt Juttelstad may still have to sweat the result of his grad school admissions interview, but he certainly won’t have to sweat how to pay for grad school.

The Florida native came back from a nearly year-long hiatus from poker to play in the Seminole Hard Rock Lucky Hearts Poker Open only because he was going to be in the Miami area for his interview at Florida Atlantic University.  He even busted on Day 1A and only re-entered on Day 1B after his interview ended earlier than expected. That decision was a profitable one for Juttelstad. He is now a WPT title holder and has $268,444.

When the Lucky Hearts final table began, it was Gigi Gagne who was in pole postion with a big chip lead over the field and a chance to become the first female winner of a WPT open event.  She took a hit to her stack early though when she flopped two pair holding [Ac4h] on an [Ah5h4s] board and got it all-in against Ferrera’s [As10h].  Ferrera spiked a ten on the turn to make a better two pair and double, then put another dent in Gagne’s stack a few hands later.

Though it was Ferrera who got off to the fastest start at the final table, he was the player who exited first when he aggressively four-bet all-in preflop with Q-J and Juttelstad called with [9c9s].  Ferrera flopped a jack and looked in good shape to double, but the river brought the [9h] to give Juttelstad a set and the pot, sending Ferrera home in sixth place.

Then it was Juttelstad’s turn to hold the chip lead, but he had to weather a storm of rough hands, including short stack Todd Jacobson doubling thru him on two separate occassions.  Jacobson came in as the smallest stack, but refused to give up and lasted through 192 hands of action before busting in fifth place when his pocket tens couldn’t hold against Sharon Levin’s [Abut asd4d] after the two got it all-in preflop.

Busting Jacobson added some chips to Levin’s dwindling stack, but with both Juttelstad and Uri Kadosh sitting on big stacks, it was tough for Levin to keep up with the pack.  Levin tried to pick up some chips by shoving all-in from the button with [Ac3s], but Gagne woke up with a bigger ace, [As10c], in the big blind.  Her hand held and Levin exited in fourth place.

When three-handed play began, the trio of players were closely packed together in the counts, but then Juttelstad took command of the table and started amassing quite a pile of chips.  Juttelstad doubled thru Kadosh to take the chip lead, then picked off even more of Kadosh’s stack.  Juttelstad dealt the final blow to Kadosh when Kadosh reraised all-in preflop holding [Jc8d] and Juttelstad called him with a dominant [AhJs].

Juttelstad’s hand held to eliminate Kadosh in third place and give him a more than 3-1 advantage over Gagne going into heads-up play.  Juttelstad may have had the chip advantage, but Gagne proved she could play with patience and wouldn’t go down without a fight.

Over the course of roughly 30 hands of heads-up action, the two sparred in relatively small pots before the match abruptly screeched to a halt.  On the final hand of play, the two limped in preflop and a saw the board fall [5c3s2h].  Gagne bet and Juttelstad called.  The turn brought the [As] and Gagne, who had made the wheel with 4-8, moved all-in.  Juttelstad called immediately and showed [4c6h] for a bigger straight, leaving Gagne drawing dead to a chop.

The river [8s] ended Gagne’s hopes of becoming the first female open event winner and, in a flash, the frenetically paced final table, which plowed through 303 hands of action in less than nine hours, was over.

After the hand concluded and WPT’s own Mike Sexton interviewed Juttelstad about his victory, Juttelstad said he needed to "decompress."  That is certainly expected when you consider that in for the past four days Juttelstad played some impressive poker, staying near the top of the chip counts from Day 1 all the way to Day 4 en route to a WPT title, a seat in the WPT World Championship, and a quarter of a million dollars.  

Juttelstad deserves some time to relax…until he has to start worrying about how that grad school interview went.

Here are the final table results from the Lucky Hearts Poker Open:

1st: Matt Juttelstad – $268,444
2nd: Gigi Gagne – $158,194
3rd: Uri Kadosh – $105,463
4th: Sharon Levin – $73,344
5th: Todd Jacobson – $54,649
6th: Keith Ferrera – $42,185