First-time champ duels with multi-ring winner for WSOPC Iowa title

After a grueling 13-hour day of poker on Sunday, capped by a 90-minute heads-up duel, Ryan Brown beat Christopher Rodriguez to win his first World Series of Poker Circuit ring in the Council Bluffs Main Event, along with $85,239, and a $5,000 package to WSOP Paradise in The Bahamas.

Brown entered the day second in chips and soon took over the lead, which he wouldn't relinquish until heads-up play against Rodriguez. The lead swung back and forth several times before the final hand that saw Brown river a flush to win the tournament.

Brown spoke about his toughest challenge of the day — multi-time online ring winner Rodriguez — after a relatively smooth day until the endgame.

“There’s a ton of ups and downs in poker and poker tournaments, life, you can’t just expect it to go all up all the time. Chris definitely made my life hard at the final table the entire time, not just heads-up. He played great, and I was fortunate to turn it around and win a flip in the end.”

Ryan Brown outlasted a 13-hour final day to win the WSOPC Council Bluffs Main Event.

Key hand turns tide

A key hand late in heads-up play ultimately turned the tide in Brown’s favor. Both players held draws on a nine-seven-four board with two hearts and Rodriguez fired three streets with his open-ended straight draw holding six-five into Brown’s king-five of hearts. Brown called to the river with his flush draw, before making top pair on the end and then calling a seven-figure bet there as well to take a lead he wouldn’t relinquish.

This hand was a perfect example of what Brown had to face all day against Rodriguez.

“He was just aggressive in every situation. I had position on him, so I should have had quite the advantage, but he fought for every pot, blind versus blind, raised a ton, he played great. You could just tell he really knew his stuff.”

Christopher Rodriguez couldn't withstand Ryan Brown's final table momentum.

Picking your spots

While Brown spoke glowingly about the efforts of his final opponent, his accomplishment in winning the tournament over a densely competitive field of 275 runners that included a litany of accomplished WSOP Circuit regulars can’t be overshadowed. 

Brown suggested that a more intimately sized event is something that aspiring tournament players should seek out.

“I go to some of the bigger ones, Cherokee, I go there a lot, and it’s tough to beat 1,500 people. Here, you come, thinking you at least have a chance when there’s 250 runners or whatever. I think it’s kind of smart to seek out some of the smaller fields so you have a little bit more consistency and you can have that chance to win a ring or a title. This is a high variance game and the bigger the field, the more the variance, and the tougher it is to just do this consistently.”

Whether it’s 275 entries or 1,500, this is a moment in Brown’s already well-established four-year career, which has already seen him earn over $1,000,000.

“It’s great. It’s very hard to win a poker tournament, and these wins don’t come around too often, so you’ve got to enjoy them.”

WSOPC Council Bluffs Main Event final table results

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