Cash Game Specialist Jared Passanante Gets First Live Tournament Title
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After missing out on the first nine opening flights at "]The Reserve Poker Club, Jared Passanante had the last Day 1 of the 2025 Midwest Poker Championship $600 Main Event circled on his calendar.
The Michigan native is a cash game specialist, and it almost cost him a chance to bag up a spot in the money this weekend. Passanante had just returned from a trip to Las Vegas and was playing a late-night session before the final flights on Saturday. He fired through three bullets before taking a break and regrouping.
“I came down on Saturday because I knew if I fired the daytime flight and missed, I'd have a chance to fire the turbo flight at night,” Passanante told PokerNews moments after claiming victory on Monday night.
“I only slept like three hours, got up, came and played. I played some of the worst poker I ever played for my first three bullets. I was like, why did I even come? That was how I felt, like when I first showed up, because I was literally just punting my chips away. I was burnt when I got here. Then I was like, all right, f*ck this. I left, I went to Starbucks, got a coffee, I took like 20 minutes. I came back and then just I started playing it after that.”
That turnaround saw Passanante collect over a million chips at the end of his opening flight, which turned into more than 22 million the following night. By the end of the tournament, Passanante defeated Lucas Rea to earn his first live tournament title.
The field of 2,270 entries smashed through the advertised guarantee, creating a prize pool of $1,135,000. After a heads-up deal to adjust the top two payouts, Passanante takes home $165,500, along with the trophy and a brand new Rolex watch.
2025 Midwest Poker Championship Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Country | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jared Passanante | United States | $165,500* |
| 2 | Lucas Rea | United States | $130,500* |
| 3 | Daniel Houle | United States | $68,720 |
| 4 | Richard Kollarik | United States | $48,050 |
| 5 | Satoshi Tanaka | United States | $37,210 |
| 6 | Imari Love | United States | $30,685 |
| 7 | Robert Constable | United States | $24,560 |
| 8 | Jarvis Hooks | United States | $20,190 |
| 9 | Matthew Higgins | United States | $16,250 |
*Denotes Heads-Up Deal
Road to the Title
Passanante returned for Day 2 with a clear mind, but it was anything but a smooth start as the field battled for a spot at the final table.
“Definitely a long day yesterday,” Passanante said while looking back at the weekend. “A lot of ups and downs. I started the day with like around a million in chips, grinded my way up to around two million and punted about half of it away. It was right back down to one million.”
“There were definitely like a lot of times in the past where I would just punt the rest of my chips, because I can't like snap out of that motor. I'm very, very, I'm very hard on myself, so lately I've been trying to just focus on if I play bad on the hand, just try to snap out of it and just focus on getting back to playing good.”
After building his stack back up, Passanante played a pivotal Day 2 hand against Soheb Porbandarwala, calling a shove on turn with top pair to knock out a dangerous opponent.
“I came to that conclusion at the end that I could never fold, but it was such a big decision, like so deep in the tournament. That was a really key one right there for sure.”
Armed with a big stack late in the day, Passanante earned a spot among the final nine and finished third in chips.
Final Table Action
Action started quickly on the final day, as three quick knockouts saw the pay jumps come into focus for Passanante.
“I definitely made a couple folds and did a couple things a little more cautiously than I would do earlier on just watching for the ICM implications for some of the short stacks, which for me is awkward. I usually just play cash and it's usually just all really deep. I'm not really worried about ICM implications and stuff like that, so I was just trying to take my time and make sure I didn't like overstep on any hands or anything.”
Passanante did not score an knockout at the final table until sending Satoshi Tanaka out in fifth. He followed that up by eliminating Daniel Houle in third, setting up the heads-up duel.
After striking the deal, Passanante and Rae battled for an additional $35,000 and the Rolex watch, a prize added to the winner’s haul by The Reserve Poker Club.
The final hand saw Rae shove a straight draw, and Passanante’s pair held to earn the elusive title. It means a lot to the champion to take home the trophy here in Toledo.
“This is kind of like home. I'm from Detroit, but you know we have the stream game here and I helped these guys build that up a lot from when they first started, and they do a good job.”
“I want to make sure I made a point to come out and support, for what they're doing here for the size of the buy-in and how big the prize pool gets. So I think they do a really amazing job here.”
