Isaac Kempton Wins 2020 WSOP Circuit Seminole Hard Rock Tampa Main Event

Isaac Kempton has won the 2020 World Series of Poker Circuit Seminole Hard Rock Tampa $1,700 no-limit hold’em main event. The 22-year-old student and poker player from Newark, Delaware defeated a field of 1,162 total entries to take home his first WSOPC gold ring and the top prize of $290,974.

“I probably got into poker four years ago right as I was heading off to college. I saw some youtube videos of the old high stakes poker days, and once you watch one, you start watching more, and then you get drawn into the rabbit hole, you just want to keep watching,” Kempton told WSOP reporters about his road to this win. “I played for fun for two years, and since I was pretty good at it, I decided it taking it seriously, so I started actually studying and trying to get better instead of just playing on the weekends without much thought. I was able to grind my way up and now I’m here.”

In addition to the title and the money, Kempton was also awarded 960 Card Player Player of the Year points as the champion of this event. This was his first POY-qualified score of the year, and it alone was enough to see him climb into a tie for 32nd place in the 2020 POY race standings, which are sponsored by Global Poker.

Kempton came into the final day as the chip leader with 25 players remaining. By the time the final table of nine was set, he sat in second chip position behind Paul Balzano. He fell down the leaderboard a bit as final-table action continued, but managed to win a key race with AK versus the pocket nines of David Jackson to surge back up the chip counts.

Paul Balzano continued to accumulate, winning a race with pocket fives against the ace-king of Francisco Gomez (7th – $48,195) to become the first player to surpass the 10,000,000 mark.

WSOP bracelet winner and World Poker Tour champion James Calderaro lost the majority of his stack with the nut flush draw and a straight draw up against the top set of David Jackson, who flew up the leaderboard after his hand held up. Calderaro was eliminated not long after taking that hit, earning $79,480 as the fifth-place finisher.

Kempton secured his first elimination at the final table by busting Robert Manjura. Kempton picked up pocket aces against Manjura’s ace-king and held to take the chip lead and send Manjura to the rail in fourth place ($103,434).

Balzano shoved his last chips in with J10 and got called by Kempton’s A9. Kempton flopped a pair of aces and held from there to eliminate Balzano in third place ($135,794).

With that Kempton took more than a 2:1 chip lead into heads-up play with David Jackson, who had finished 2019 in a tie for 20th place in the POY race standings. The final hand saw the two opponents make it to a flop of 1083. Jackson bet 650,000 when checked to and Kempton called. The turn was 4 and Kempton checked again. Jackson bet 2,500,000. Kempton called and the river was the A. Kempton checked a third time and Jackson moved all-in for 8,900,000. Kempton went deep into the tank, but eventually made the call with the Q8 for third pair. Jackson was bluffing with a missed straight draw: J9. With that Jackson was eliminated in second place, earning $179,833 for his strong showing in this event.

Winner photo provided by WSOP.

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