Oddie Dardon Wins Card Player Poker Tour Bicycle Main Event

An ace on the river sealed the deal for Osmin “Oddie” Darden. After coming into the final day of the Card Player Poker Tour Bicycle Casino $1,100 main event, Darden battled through the final 17 players, the last of which was Florida pro Lily Kiletto to win $155,535.

Killeto proved a worthy opponent not only for Darden, but the rest of the remaining players on day 3. With just 12 big blinds when the official final table began, she was the only player with less than a million in chips at the time, the next shortest stack having nearly twice as many chips.

The final hand began when Dardon made it 650,000 from the button and Kiletto shipped all in for about 1.85 million. Dardon called and the hands were tabled with Dardon showing A K against Kiletto’s K 7.

A flop of 6 5 4, gave Kiletto an open-ended straight draw and she paired up with the 7 on the turn. With Kiletto in the lead, Dardon was drawing for one of the three remaining aces to win, and end, the tournament, or an eight for a chop.

Unfortunately for Kiletto, the tough-fought battle ended when the A drilled the river, giving Dardon a superior pair for the win. Kiletto collected $85,095 in prize money for her second-place finish.

In all, Dardon bested a field of 521 players, including 2015 World Series of Poker November Niner Max Steinberg, two-time WSOP bracelet winners John Monnette and Dan Heimiller, WSOP bracelet winners Sam Stein, Marco Johnson, Cord Garcia, and Barry Hutter, and World Poker Tour champion Eric Hershler.

The win marks Dardon’s third-largest live cash to date, being outdone only by his 2008 World Poker Tour third-place finish in the Festa Al Lago main event for $506,245 and a third-place finish in the 2008 World Series of Poker $1,500 no-limit hold’em for $243,734. With an additional $155,535 to his name, Dardon now has more than $1.7 million in live tournament cashes.

The prize is also the largest first-place payout of Season III of the CPPT and makes Dardon the highest earner on the tour this year.

Going into the tournament, Kiletto had just over $500,000 in live tournament results. The $85,095 she earned for her CPPT runner-up finish is the third largest score of her live career. Kiletto finished runner up in the 2013 World Poker Tour Lucky Hearts Poker Open in 2013 for $191,880 and fifth in the tour’s Playground Poker Fall Classic later that same year for $129,543.

Notable in-the-money finishes included Nipun Java (51st $2,405), Matt Salsberg ($47th $2,405), Chris Grigorian (33rd $3,110), Jordan Cristos (26th $3,460), Valentin Vornicu (22nd $3,930), Monnette (11th $7,275), and Nathan Bjerno (10th $7,275).

Main Event Results