On Aug. 3, 2025 Antonio Vargas topped the field at the latest Major Series of Poker: The Tour stop near the top of the Rocky Mountains in Black Hawk, Colorado. He had previously finished third in another MSPT event at the same venue in early 2024. The nearby Commerce City resident was awarded $141,255 for this recent win, the largest score of his poker career.
“It’s truly amazing, I came very close in this event last year, so to be able to close this one out, words can’t describe it,” said Vargas to reporters on the scene after the victory.
The $1,110 buy-in no-limit hold’em tournament saw 875 entries made at Bally’s Black Hawk. That put the prize pool at $847,250, which easily lapped the $500,000 guarantee. The final 98 players secured at least $2,158 in prize money for cashing. Notables that ran deep included Beau Wilshire (61st), Justin Lynch (56th), Anthony Scarborough (52nd), Timothy Thorp (39th), Zach Gutierez (18th), Eric Maier (15th), Isaiah Easter (11th), and Colin Gordon (10th).
From Nine To A Champion
The start of the final table saw Vargas sitting pretty in the top three stacks to give him plenty of ammo to work with at the final table. Erik Macias (ninth), Andrew Dea (eighth), and Cody Mondeau all fell in the first hour of play.
The clock marched toward midnight as the next batch of eliminations sent John Schroer (sixth), Thomas Fuller (fifth), and Rahul Lal (fourth) home with a nice amount of prize money for each of them. Vargas had yet to take out a player at the final table up until that point, but three-handed play saw him kick into gear.
He scored a huge pot to take the chip lead with his 8♠6♠ in the hole flopping a flush when K♠9♠5♠ hit the table against the K-Q held by Rich Dixon. Vargas was cruising after that, and he took out Dixon in third place when his A♠3♠ held against K♣J♥ after all the money got in preflop in one of the next hands and the board bricked out. That gave Vargas just about a 2:1 chip advantage over Zack Whitney before the final battle of the tournament began.
That was when a little before 1:00 AM the final two players decided to do an ICM chop that ended the tournament. The decision awarded Vargas the title and top prize money for his first MSPT victory. This was his fifth win a tournament hosted at Bally’s Black Hawk. Whitney also scored six-figures for his efforts, and the $120,190 he won almost doubled his career earnings.
Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Payout | POY Points |
| 1 | Antonio Vargas | $141,255 | 912 |
| 2 | Zachary Whitney | $120,190 | 760 |
| 3 | Rich Dixon | $73,371 | 608 |
| 4 | Rahul Lal | $54,779 | 456 |
| 5 | Thomas Fuller | $41,499 | 380 |
| 6 | John Schroer | $31,539 | 304 |
| 7 | Cody Mondeau | $24,070 | 228 |
| 8 | Andrew Dea | $19,085 | 152 |
| 9 | Erik Macias | $14,940 | 76 |
Photo credit: MSPT.
