Shawn Van Asdale with his first RIU trophy

Shawn Van Asdale is running out of space in his house for all of his poker trophies.

“I’m running out of room for all of these,” said Van Asdale to a spectator after his latest win. “This is my first Run It Up one though. So, that’s cool.”

The local player from Reno won $6,368 after defeating a 122-entry field in the $235 8-Game championship Wednesday night. His first RIU title came at the end of the most epic heads-up battle of the young series.

His heads-up match with Patrick Preston went for several levels, about 90 minutes and saw several lead changes before Van Asdale finally emerged victorious. There were some chop negotiations during three-handed play between the two finalists and Glenn Uchibori, but ultimately Van Asdale nixed the deal and went on to win the tournament.

“I almost never take a straight ICM chop,” said Van Asdale. “Even as a short stack. It seemed like the payouts were kind of compressed. So, there wasn’t a lot, like, when first is twice second, there is a lot of negotiation, but here, there wasn’t much in between.”

When Preston wouldn’t give Van Asdale more than ICM numbers, cards were back in the air and Van Asdale started his grind back to the top. Even after his win, he had nothing but good things to say about his heads-up opponent, who finished just shy of his second trophy of the series.

“I thought I had a little bit of an edge, but he played great,” said Van Asdale. “He came into the final table as the huge chip leader and three-handed he had more than half of the chips. A lot of it is limit and I got lucky in a big bet game once. What are you going to do?”

Van Asdale considers himself a semi-retired poker pro. He played primarily online in the pre-Black Friday era, but after online wasn’t a real option for him anymore, he stayed in Reno with his family and plays part-time.

“I just kind of futz around, play Call of Duty and win the occasional poker tournament,” said Van Asdale.

Preston scored $4,260 for his runner-up finish. Here are a look at the results:

1st: Shawn Van Asdale – $6,368
2nd: Patrick Preston – $4,260
3rd: Glenn Uchibori – $3,080
4th: Jason Somerville – $2,250
5th: Zhihao Zhang – $1,540
6th: John Marcoux – $1,070
7th: Chris Lindner – $685
8th: Andrew Barber – $685
9th: Blake Cavanagh – $520
10th: Carol Davis – $520
11th: Adam Smith – $400
12th: Nancy Robeibur – $400
13th: William Renna – $330
14th: David Spurr – $330
15th: Adam Johns – $330
16th: Joe Rando – $300
17th: Pablo Gutierrez – $300
18th: Raymond Barranco – $300