Carson Richards Wins First Mid-States Poker Tour Event Of The Year

Carson Richards was crowned as the first Mid-States Poker Tour champion of 2025 when he won the tour’s opening stop of the year at the Venetian Poker Room in Las Vegas, Nevada on Jan. 5. This was his first tournament victory, but the $76,045 in prize money paled in comparison to his largest tournament score of $536,080 that was earned for his runner-up showing in the 2024 World Series of Poker mystery millions bounty event. Richards’ career earnings are now just shy of $670,000.

“It feels really good, I used to just play mostly as a hobby, but I got into it more after I finished second in a bracelet event last summer for a big score so I’ve been playing a lot more,” said Richards to MSPT reporters after the win. He continued when asked about the tough challenge at the final table: “Pro after pro after pro, it was a very tough final table. Being able to come out on top of this one and winning a trophy, feels amazing.”

Richards also earned 720 Card Player Player of the Year points, enough to surge into the lead in the 2025 POY race standings presented by Global Poker.

The $1,100 buy-in no-limit hold’em tournament drew a field of 431 entries to create a final prize pool at $415,591, easily surpassing the $300,000 guarantee. The top 48 players all cashed for at least $2,356, and that’s how many players returned on day 2 for the long march down to a champion.

Familiar faces that made a deep run on the final day of play included Anthony Rocco (45th), Jeff Platt (37th), Jeff Madsen (22nd), Rodger Johnson (18th), Aaron Massey (11th), and Darren Rabinowitz (10th). Richards had stormed to the top of the chip counts among the final nine with almost two million more than his closest competitor.

Richards jumped right out of the gates strong by eliminating both John Lewis in ninth place and Jeff Yarchever in eighth place. Louis Haeick saw his number called next when he fell in seventh place, and then Richard found his third knockout punch of the night when took out Johnson Nguyen in sixth place.

The poker player from Scottsdale, Arizona could simply not be stopped when he sent Bojan Gledovic home in fifth place as well. Poker fan favorite Jamie Kerstetter hit the rail next in fourth place, and then Richards was back in action again when he took out two-time bracelet winner Joshua Remitio in third place. Despite Richards’ impressive run through the final table, three-time bracelet winner Ryan Leng had done enough to keep pace with him throughout the final table as they entered the final match nearly even.

There was just one all-in hand between them, and it saw Leng’s last chips wagered with 64 on a board reading 643Q. Richards was waiting with a cooler in the form of 52 for a flopped straight, and the river changed nothing when it brought the 3. That gave Richards the tournament win, while Leng took home $56,008 as the runner-up to take his career earnings close to $3.9 million.

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

This was the first MSPT stop of 2025, and the tour will continue with another main event at Sycuan Casino Resort in San Diego, California running from Jan. 17-20.

Photo Credit: Mid-States Poker Tour

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