Ravee Sundara Ships Texas refused visa slots for fall 2024Poker Open Main Event at Champions Club for $283,143

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Table Of Contents

• Sundara Takes it Down
• Texas Poker Open Main Event Final Table Results

A local poker pro took down the $3,300 Texas Poker Open Main Event at Champions Club Texas in Houston on Tuesday.

Ravee Sundara beat a field of 699 entrants to win $283,143 at the card room he frequents. The champion often referred to as "Sonny" not only won the coveted belt buckle trophy. He also earned his first PokerGO Tour victory in the process.

Sundara Takes it Down

Sundara's win is even more impressive when you consider he entered Day 3 with just a middling stack and had to outplay a number of top pros, including Andrew Moreno, Justin Liberto, and Viet Vo.

Kaleb Harwell entered the final session with the biggest stack and 11 players remaining. Harwell's stack was about three times that of Sundara's when play began. But Sundara would begin his run to the top with pocket aces, earning a full double when Liberto jammed on a queen-high flop with ace-high.

The eventual champion, however, would lose some chips between that point and when the final table began after Michael Liang busted in 10th place ($40,000). Harwell had a sizeable chip lead when the final table started.

Texas Poker Open Main Event Final Table Results

Place	Player	Prize
1	Ravee Sundara	$283,143
2	Kaleb Harwell	$264,529
3	Aaron Gao	$247,328
4	Jason Bullock	$125,000
5	Phu Vo	$100,000
6	Andrew Moreno	$80,000
7	William Benson	$60,000
8	Viet Vo	$50,000
9	Justin Liberto	$40,000

Liberto became short stacked following the big pot loss against Sundara. He'd bust first at the final table and go home with $40,000. Vo then lost a 60/40 to Aaron Gao, who took over the chip lead, and was eliminated in eighth place for $50,000.

Gao then clipped Will Benson in seventh place ($60,000) when A♠K♠sucked out against KxKx. The tournament took a major turn when Moreno's straight draw failed to hit against Harwell, which gave Harwell a massive chip lead and sent Moreno to the rails in sixth place for $80,000.

Sundara finally built up some momentum by hitting a full house to bust Phu Vo, who had the nut straight, in fifth place for $100,000.

Sundara continued to increase his stack before Gao eliminated Jason Bullock in fourth place ($125,000). The remaining three players all had nearly even stacks at that point. As such, they agreed to a three-way ICM chop, leaving an extra $20,000 out of the prize pool to the winner.

Three-handed play, despite the chop, was quite intense. Sundara quickly pulled away from the pack before losing a chunk of his stack to Gao, and then running into a cooler with two pair against Harwell's set. That left Sundara with just over 3 million in chips, whereas the other two players had a combined 38 million chips.

But the battle didn't end there, and neither did the good fortune for Sundara, who got it all in with K♠10♥against Gao's A♥A♣. The aces would be cracked when the board ran out 5♥4♥9♠J♣Q♦, a wild runner-runner straight.

Harwell would finish off Gao in third place for $247,328, and the final two players were left with nearly identical stacks. The heads-up opponents agreed to play it out for the belt buckle by way of pot-limit Omaha flips. They agreed to a best-of-three format. Sundara won the first two flips, which ended the tournament. Harwell took home $264,529 for second place.

Sundara now has nearly $900,000 in live tournament cashes, according to The Hendon Mob.

*Images courtesy of PokerGO/Champions Club Texas.