Minnesota poker legend Blake Bohn became the first player to win five Mid-States Poker Tour (MSPT) titles at its latest stop at Ameristar East Chicago.
Bohn — the last player to be elected to the Minnesota Poker Hall of Fame in 2016 — outlasted a field of 557 entries to win $113,146. The six-figure tally makes it nearly $1 million in MSPT earnings for Bohn as he jumps over the $4 million mark in lifetime earnings, according to Hendon Mob.
It’s been a great stretch for the five-time champ going all the way back to his fourth win at MSPT’s Winter Poker Classic in December of last year when Bohn outlasted over 1,000 entries to win the Running Aces tournament for $181,864. After his Winter Poker Classic win, Bohn followed up with a victory in the Big Stack Challenge in Columbus, MN for $73,697 before he made a deep run to 24th at the $25,000 PokerStars Players Championship in The Bahamas for $107,500.
Later in May, he won the Canterbury Park Spring Poker Championship Main Event for $64,579. He went on to cash twice at the WSOP before he nearly won the MSPT Iowa State Poker Championship in July, where Bohn finished in second for $92,156 to Isaac Pettinger.
Blake Bohn’s MSPT Titles
| Date | Event | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| August 2014 | MSPT Grand Falls, Sioux Falls | $54,607 |
| July 2015 | MSPT Meskwaki, Iowa | $101,229 |
| Sept. 2018 | MSPT Canterbury Park, Minnesota | $94,776 |
| Dec. 2022 | MSPT Winter Poker Classic, Minnesota | $181,864 |
| Oct. 2023 | MSPT Ameristar East Chicago, Indiana | $113,146 |
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Bohn’s first tour win came in August of 2014 when he beat a field of 201 entries to win MSPT Main Event 49 at Grand Falls Casino in South Dakota. His second came the following year at MSPT Main Event 69 at Meskwaki Casino in Iowa. He beat a field of 410 entries to pick up the win in the shadow of his 23rd-place finish in the 2015 WSOP Main Event.
It was another three years before he would win his third and it came at Main Event 133 at Canterbury Park in Minnesota. The win was revenge for Bohn, who had finished in second place in the same tournament earlier that year.
At the time, Bohn and Carl Carodenuto were the only players with three MSPT titles, a club since joined by Matt Kirby and Kou Vang. Bohn would win his fourth more than four years later at the Winter Poker Classic in December of 2022. The win tied Bohn with Dan Bekavac — the other player with four MSPT wins.
Bohn, a MSPT Hall of Famer, now stands alone with his fifth victory on tour, which was his 36th MSPT cash and 13th top-ten finish. Five events remain for the tour before the season wraps up, including three at the Venetian in Las Vegas.
2023 MSPT Player of the Year Race
| *Rank | Player | POY Points( |
| 1 | Umut Ozturk | 8,238 |
| 2 | Rob WazWaz | 6,725 |
| 3 | Blake Bohn | 5,250 |
| 4 | Jared Ingles | 3,950 |
| 5 | Kou Vang | 3,650 |
| 6 | DJ Buckley | 3,442 |
| 7 | Max Havlish | 3,350 |
| 8 | Justin Lynch | 3,091 |
| 9 | Michael Berk (IN) | 3,040 |
| 10 | Ray Ezzie | 2,900 |
Live Reporting Executive
Las Vegas-based PokerNews Live Reporting Executive, originally from Chicago, IL
