Matt Stout Wins 2018 Run It Up Reno Main Event

Matt Stout and his girlfriend Brittney Barnes are expecting their first child together in the next month or so, and that impending life-changing event has seen Stout move away from following the tournament poker circuit full time. The Las Vegas-based poker pro has lifetime tournament earnings of more than $4 million, but recently has begun to shift his focus to playing pot-limit Omaha cash games and working on building up his non-profit company, the Charity Series of Poker. With the baby arriving soon, the couple decided to make the trip to the Peppermill Hotel Casino in Reno for one last tournament trip. Both Barnes and Stour played the 2018 Run It Up Reno $600 no-limit hold’em main event, and both made the money. From a field of 687 entries, Barnes ultimately finished in 87th place for $1,020 while Stout went on to capture the title, taking home a sizable trophy and the top prize of $70,000.

“I feel great right now,” Stout told the Run It Up blog after coming out on top. “It’s a lot of hard work and a lot of heartache in tournaments, and once a year or every two years you get to feel like a genius again.”

In addition to the money and the title, Stout also earned 420 Card Player Player of the Year points as the champion of this event. This was his sixth POY-qualified score of the year, and it was enough to see him climb to 174th place in the overall rankings.

Stout defeated Kevin Martin heads-up for the title. Martin is a Canadian poker pro and Twitch streamer, and was arguably the most accomplished player at the final table outside of Stout.

“If I were to rank all the players and who I wanted to play heads-up in this tournament with, he would definitely come up at the bottom of the list,” Stout said of Martin. “He played great the whole tournament."

In the final hand of the event, Stout opened to 450,000 on the button with the A7. Martin moved all-in for 4.5 million from the big blind with the KJ and Stout made the call. The board brought the 8528Q and Stout’s ace high was enough to win the pot and the title. Martin earned $48,210 as the runner-up finisher, the largest live payday of his career.

Here is a look at the payouts and POY points awarded at the final table:

Winner photo credit: Run It Up blog.

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