Greektown Casino

Greektown Casino Quick Summary

Please check out the full event write up below.

Greektown Casino Top 6

First Place Pat Meeks Walker, MI $162,792	Second Place Dean Hamrick East Lansing, MI $81,396	Third Place Tony Villano Bay City, MI $48,838
Fourth Place Gary Dosey Chelsea, MI $37,985	Fifth Place Woodrow William Sloan Belleville, MI $32,558	Sixth Place Trevor Hackworth Bowling Green, OH $27,132

Greektown Casino Top 38 Finishers

Greektown Casino Recap

Four hometown buddies drove 3 hours at the last minute on a hunch their friend was going to do something special at the most recent Heartland Poker Tour event. Their hunch was correct as they got there just in time to watch him sail to victory and capture an HPT championship and $165,792 at Greektown Casino in downtown Detroit. Patrick Meeks, 37, was playing in his first ever Heartland Poker Tour event just a few hours from his hometown of Walker, MI. Playing on just a couple hours of sleep, Meeks took advantage of a great run of cards to capture his title.

“This is all pretty overwhelming right now,” said Meeks. “I’m working on a couple hours of sleep and I’m practically unconscious right now. I’m sure it’s going to take a few days to sink in.”

Meeks had two pivotal hands to propel him to the win. The first came with eight players remaining when he got it in bad with J10 of clubs against KK and AA. A magical club hit the river giving him a flush and tripling him up. Hours later Meeks found himself against the wall again with three remaining when his QQ ran into KK. A queen hit the flop and another on the turn giving him quads and provided the chips necessary to find the finish line.

“We just had a feeling” said one of his buddies after the finish. “We figured worst case we could just party in Detroit for the night, but this is better.”

Meeks had to overcome one of the hottest poker players on the planet by beating Dean Hamrick heads up for the championship. Hamrick is just now hitting the national television stage with his recent 10^th place finish at the WSOP main event this past summer. Nationally televised episodes of that finish have been airing for weeks and Hamrick was very recognizable during his HPT run. After picking up pocket Aces three times during the final table, it looked like Hamrick was going to run his luck into an HPT championship, but it was not to be for him this time.

For the Greektown Casino it was another monster event with 375 players in the $1650 main event. The prize pool was one of the biggest in Michigan history.