It’s blown over now, but a month ago, there was a little storm blowing up in our Twitter snow globe, after Daniel Negreanu declared his intention to boycott re-entry events. After a few strums of his guitar, Kid Poker decided it was -EV to stick to his guns, but his points about the value of re-entry tournaments pressed on, as did the rebuttals.
The World Series of Poker (WSOP) heard those jungle drums.
The last time the WSOP went to press on the 2020 schedule, it was to notify us of the $10,000 Championship events and associated leaderboard. Today, we get to see the glossy cover of the other bookend, and once again, Negreanu and his supporters will be pleased.
Between May 26 and July 15, the WSOP will schedule a $1,000 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em (NLHE) Freezeout, including the first event of the series, beginning at 11 am on Wednesday, May 27.
The new events bring the total of the $1,000 buy-in or below pricepoints to 25, and all but one of utilises the Freezeout format, or allow single re-entry or single re-entry per flight stipulations. The only event cobbled in that batch of 25 is the Little One for One Drop, which maintains the re-entry clause to raise more money for Guy Laliberte’s charity.
The red cape holders have called these events the ‘Value Menu,’ and explain that it’s a “concerted effort by the WSOP in 2020,” to offer low buy-in live tournaments. Stats show the bulls will stampede. It’s a nice compromise given how lucrative multiple re-entry events are for tournament organisers.
WSOP Vice-President, Jack Effel, said these events are crucial to meeting the mandate of attracting new players to the series, and if that’s the case then it’s a win, win, win, win, win.
“The WSOP is committed to keeping a significant portion of the schedule utilising the freezeout format.”
Of the 25 events with a $1k or lower buy-in, 15 were previously unreleased, and with the WSOP Online events still to come, you can guarantee that we will see even more games of a low buy-in nature.
We wait with bated breath on news of the $25k+ events, including the confirmation, or not, of the $1m Big One for One Drop.
Here is the ‘Value Menu.’
May 27 – $1,000 NLHE Freezeout
May 27 – $500 NLHE Casino Employee
May 28-31 – $500 NLHE BIG 50
Jun 1 – $600 NLHE DeepStack
Jun 2 – $1,000 NLHE Super Turbo Bounty
Jun 7 – $1,000 NLHE Forty-Stack
Jun 8 – $600 Pot-Limit Omaha (PLO) DeepStack
Jun 10 – $1,000 PLO 8-Handed
Jun 14 – $800 NLHE DeepStack
Jun 15 – $500 NLHE Freezeout
Jun 16 – $600 Mixed NLHE/PLO
Jun 17 – $1,000 Ladies NLHE
Jun 18 – $1,000 Seniors NLHE Championship
Jun 19-20 – $1,000 NLHE Double-Stack
Jun 21 – $800 NLHE DeepStack
Jun 22 – $1,000 Super Seniors NLHE
Jun 22 – $1000/Team Tag Team NLHE
Jun 23 – $600 NLHE DeepStack Championship
Jun 24-25 – $400 NLHE COLOSSUS
Jun 26-27 – $888 NLHE Crazy Eights
Jun 29 – $1,000 Mini Main Event
Jun 30 – $500 FINAL 500 Salute to Warriors NLHE
Jul 4-6 – $1,1111 NLHE Little One for One Drop
Jul 12 – $800 NLHE DeepStack
Jul 13 – $1,000 NLHE Super Turbo
A decade ago, nobody in poker was more rock n roll than Viktor Blom. Competing under the alias’ Isildur1′, the Swedish star blew a whistle into the eardrum of every high stakes player on the planet, and a few still have tinnitus to this day.
PokerStars was the first company to recognise Blom’s brand-ability. In 2011, the giant of the online poker world placed him on top of a mountain of mattresses, and he felt the pea.
Poker’s prince had a face.
Stars’ relationship with Blom lasted a year, but he had barely stepped back into the shadows when Full Tilt partnered him with Tom Dwan and Gus Hansen to spearhead their reemergence as an online poker powerhouse.
What looked like red liquorice on paper turned out, in reality, to be Brussel sprouts. Full Tilt entered the maze of forgotten greats, and Blom quietly slipped away like heavy eyelids.
The poker press has spotted him, occasionally. Like last year when he turned up at the King’s Resort in Rozvadov and took down the 927-entrant partypoker MILLIONS Germany for $1m, but a teenager with a parentally locked I-Pad is likelier to find porn than the poker community is to find Blom.
He’s like a ghost.
Well, the man Phil Galfond recently confessed, was his fiercest rival back in the day, is back, with his head popping up above the unlikeliest of parapets: Pokio.
Pokio and Blom
I know what you’re thinking, “why is one of online poker’s fiercest ever competitors affiliated with The Super Mario Brothers.” I get the confusion, I do. However, I’m not talking about the pokios that live in Mario World’s seaside kingdom.
Pokio’s unique selling proposition is declaring they are the first real money social poker experience to receive a license from the Malta Gaming Authority (MGA).
Last year, Pokio donned their fatigues and entered the war for attention in poker’s ecosystem when they partnered with the Cash Game Festival (CGF), the Portomaso Casino and the Malta Poker Festival (MPF) a triumvirate of activities centred around their H.Q.
But this is something else.
Blom is not the terror he once was, but his name still makes some quarters of the poker community go weak at the knees. If you wish to compete with Blom and have a natter about the good old days, then sign-up, join his club.
Qufan Internet Technology Ltd owns Pokio. In Nov 2016, the Chinese online sports lottery outfit 500.com acquired a 51% stake in the company for the not too shabby sum of $16m.
The app offers all the standard games, and formats, including Open-Face Chinese (OFC), and a Swedish game called Sviten Special, branded as Drawmaha.
Blom is not the only professional poker player with links to Pokio. The former European Poker Tour (EPT) Champion, and High Stakes Poker contestant, Andreas Hoivold, also has a club on the app.
If you were playing poker on the Playstation, and you were Latin American, then Farid Jattin would be one of your hot character picks. The 31-year-old from Barranquilla, Colombia, had his best year on the live tournament circuit in 2019, recognised by the Global Poker Index (GPI) awarding him the Latin American Player of the Year (PoY) title.
The weatherman has spoken, and you can expect nothing but heat for the Colombian in the near future.
A year after finishing runner-up to Anton Morgenstern in the AUD 25,000 Pot-Limit Omaha (PLO), and a lost train ticket away from finishing 7/59 in the same tournament, Jattin finally has an Aussie Millions gold ring.
Jattin brought the field of 169-entrants to its knees in the AUD 25,000 No-Limit Hold’em (NLHE) Challenge beneath the poisonous skies of Melbourne to collect the second most significant score of his career ($678,900).
To reach the summit, Colombia’s All-Time #1 Live Tournament Money Earner had to beat George Wolff in heads-up action, but not before the pair agreed upon a heads-up deal.
Like Jattin, 2019 was Wolff’s best year for live tournament consistency, earning a record $1.6m. He won a £10k PLO event at the British Poker Open (BPO) in September, but it’s been his consistency at the top end of these things that’s impressive with five runner-up finishes. A tad more luck on the occasional flop, turn or river, and Wolff would have had more toasts.
Wolff came into this one in fine fettle, finishing 3/37 in a $25k NLHE during the World Poker Tour (WPT) Five Diamond World Poker Classic, and 3/160 in a $3k event at the Venetian, both in December.
It was a final table brimming with quality, making it challenging not to be verbose when it comes to their accomplishments.
I’ll make it short and sweet.
Steve O’Dwyer followed up his 5/37 finish in the $25k NLHE at the MILLIONS UK in Nottingham with a third-place finish here. The GPI Canadian PoY, Sam Greenwood, finished fourth. The former WPT Jeju Champ, Masato Yokosawa finished fifth, the former World Series of Poker Europe (WSOPE) Main Event winner, Jack Sinclair was sixth, and former Aussie Millions ring winner, Kenney Hallaert, finished seventh.
It’s the second successive calendar year that Jattin has propelled himself out of the starting blocks like a phantom. He finished 7/1039 at the $25,000 NLHE PokerStars Players’ Championship (PSPC) in the Bahamas for $746,000, before a decent outing in Melbourne.
Here are the final table results in full.
Final Table Results
Farid Jattin – $678,900*
George Wolff – $566,832*
Steve O’Dwyer – $322,501
Sam Greenwood – $238,371
Masato Yokosawa – $168,262
Jack Sinclair – $119,185
Kenny Hallaert – $91,142
*Indicates a heads-up deal.
When the shortlists for the 2018 Global Poker Awards (GPA) arrived in our’ inbox’, social graces went awry, as people, angry at the omissions coming from a faulty voting system, spat dummies at the Global Poker Index (GPI) like shells shot from a Sherman.
The GPI’s leader, Eric Danis, reacted with humility, taking the flagpoles to the chin, and issuing a statement promising a ‘concerted effort’ to ‘improve the voting process’ from 2019 and beyond.
Danis has lived up to his part of the bargain.
The GPA returns live and direct from the PokerGO Studios in Las Vegas, March 6. If you have a PokerGo subscription, then you can put the kettle on, grab the homemade date and almond granola, and watch the whole thing live. If not, then outside, foraging for acorns it is then.
The Changes
The broad-spectrum nomination panel turned out to be as popular as turning off your laptop. In the bin, it went, as did the people gathered in a phone booth to make the final decisions – the jury also gets an axe to the head.
As expected, an expert panel takes charge on a category-by-category basis, so, for example, people who listen to podcasts vote for the ‘Podcast of the Year’ award.
The GPI team put together a preliminary list for each category, and that then flies into the hands of the expert panel. During the ‘Preliminary Voting Round,’ each member of the group selects five they believe should make the shortlist. The GPI then use a formula similar to the Oscars to create ‘Official Ballots’ for each category.
During the ‘Final Voting Round’, voting panel members choose three people they believe should finish 1st, 2nd and 3rd, with 5, 3 and 1 points allocated to each pick. The fans also get a say, with a fan vote (that acts as one voting panel vote) calculated in the same fashion.
The GPI team then tally up the scores and announce the final four in each category in January with the winners announced in March.
There are 25 categories, with eight appearing for the first time.
Poker ICON replaces the Lifetime Achievement award.
Final Table Performance Award replaces the Tournament Performance Award.
The Hendon Mob (THM) Award returns with the GPI team choosing someone who has ‘done something exceptional on the THM database during the 2019 poker season’.
There is also a change to the GPI Breakout Player of the Year with only players never to be ranked inside the GPI POY Top 500 until 2019, eligible.
The members of the GPI100 will select their nomination for ‘Players Choice for Toughest Opponent.’ Fans can vote for ‘People’s Choice for Hand of the Year,’ and ‘Poker Personality.’ There is a new award for ‘Twitter Personality of the Year’, the ‘Media Content Award’ expands into ‘Video,’ ‘Written’ and ‘Photo.’ Finally, as there is no jury, the GPI Award of Merit replaces the ‘Jury Prize’ award.
Here are the awards in full.
Awards Determined by Voting Panel
GPI Breakout Player of the Year
Final Table Performance
Streamer
Vlogger
Twitter Personality
Industry Person
Tournament Director
Event of the Year
Mid-Major/Circuit
Journalist
Broadcaster
Podcast
Media Content: Written
Media Content: Video
Media Content: Photo
Awards Determined by the Fans
People’s Choice: Poker Personality
People’s Choice: Hand of the Year
Selected by the GPI’s Top 100 Ranked Players
Players Choice: Toughest Opponent of 2019
Selected by the GPI Rankings/Awards Team
GPI Poker Player of the Year (Alex Foxen)
GPI Female Player of the Year (Kristen Bicknell)
Poker ICON
THM Award
PocketFives Legacy Award (with PocketFives)
Charitable Initiative
GPI Award of Merit
We’re not about to carve his head into the granite of poker’s Mount Rushmore, but Jorryt van Hoof seems to have the oomph needed to traverse from the darkness of high stakes cash games to the bright lights of high stakes live tournaments.
Van Hoof appeared under poker Pentagon’s radar in 2014, finishing third in the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event for $3.8m, but while that year is all about the glitz and the glamour, 2019’s wrap sheet looks more like the grind.
It was the Dutchman’s best live tournament return on gross earnings outside of that remarkable run in 2014. All told, van Hoof earned $858,805. In late November, he won a 45-entrant €10,000 No-Limit Hold’em (NLHE) High Roller at the Master Classic of Poker (MCOP) in Amsterdam for $181,102. He then finished runner-up to Chin Wei Lim in a 50-entrant €25,000 NLHE event at the European Poker Tour (EPT) in Prague earning another $303,100.
Now he has an Aussie Millions ring.
Van Hoof won the 59-entrant, Event #11: AUD 25,000 Pot-Limit Omaha, defeating three Australians while four-handed to add $322,400 to his bank account.
It’s van Hoof’s first cash at the Aussie Millions, and the third live tournament win of his career.
Here is the nutshell action.
The Nutshell Action
Of the 59-entrants, only seven players would receive a return on investment, and Miroslav Sheynin was the last to see that hope vanish like the silt on a mantlepiece against the brush of a cleaner when Hun Lee sent him packing after flopping the nut flush against a straight.
Van Hoof doubled through Farid Jattin after a flush arrived on the river to beat the Colombian’s flopped two-pair hand, and Lee eliminated Jattin not long after.
Lee continued to be the punk amongst mods, eliminating his third player at the final table. Fabian Brandes went for it on a Td5s3h flop holding AhAd7h3c, only for Lee to river a two-pair hand to send the Austrian packing.
Van Hoof doubled again, this time through Lee, before taking out the dangerous Stephen Chidwick when AsQs8c6c rivered a two-pair hand to beat the KcKsTs5c of the man from the UK.
Chip Counts
Hun Lee – 1,474,000 Jorryt van Hoof – 771,000 Martin Kozlov – 472,000 Najeem Ajez – 237,000
Martin Kozlov fell first when Lee found aces and nines to beat the AhKdQcJc of Kozlov before Najeem Ajez took the lead after doubling twice through Lee.
Lee gained revenge, doubling through Ajez twice, before van Hoof took the chip lead for the first time at the final table, eliminating Ajez when Ah8h8s5c beat Jc7h5h5d when all-in pre and the eights held.
Heads-Up
Jorryt van Hoof – 1,825,000 Hun Lee – 1,130,000
Van Hoof extended his lead winning the first few pots before Lee doubled back into contention when KcKsQc9h beat AsJs9c4d. Despite, Lee knocking on the door, it never opened. The final twist in this plot saw all the money go in on a flop of Tc6h4s in a limped pot. It was Lee’s 9c8d7s3h versus the JsThTd5d of van Hoof, for a set versus a wrap, and the Dutchman scored a full house on the turn to signify the end of the contest.
Final Table Results
Jorryt van Hoof – $322,400
Hun Lee – $205,164
Najeem Ajez – $136,776
Martin Kozlov – $107,467
Fabian Brandes – $68,388
Farid Jattin – $58,618
Some 12,000 years ago, the men and women of this great planet of ours, riled God in such a bad way that he pulled the plug from his bathtub drowning 99.9% of all life. The only people who escaped God’s wrath were those permitted to trot, slither and hop onto Noah’s Ark.
If there is a God, then surely there’s another flood on its way. Adolf Hitler aside, there hasn’t been a time in the past 12,000 years when humanity has been so thoroughly annoying.
With so many crazies having fingers and thumbs on the nuclear weapon launch buttons, it’s time to start the two-by-two process all over again. I proposed that Sam Soverel and Ali Imsirovic keep the live tournament poker bloodline going.
The 2018 and 2019 Poker Masters recently reached the final table of the $25,000 No-Limit Hold’em (NLHE) High Roller at the World Poker Tour (WPT) Gardens Poker Championship in California.
There was only one table.
When Soverel and Imsirovic reached the punchline, they decided to split the prize money according to chip stacks, with Soverel’s $122,000 slightly meatier than the $103,000 of Imsirovic. With a trophy, title and #1 stamp in the Hendon Mob to play for the pair were in no mood to create some poker poetry, choosing to flip.
Imsirovic won the flip, and he’ll be hoping the title, albeit against a paltry field, will give him the moonshine kick of confidence that all poker players covet. The win comes on the back of Imsirovic’s most successful year on the live felt, winning $5.2m. The Bosnian star won seven titles, made 26 final tables, and finished in the top 3 spots 58% of the time.
The Bosnian warmed up for this one by winning the 30-entrant $50,000 NLHE Bellagio High Roller during the WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic in December.
Despite winning the most cash, the stats will show Soverel’s run ended in the #2 position, and that’s ok with him. Soverel also had his best year to date in 2019. He won $5.8m in total, including taking down the British Poker Open (BPO), the Poker Masters, and defending his Poker Central Player of the Year (PoY) title. Of his 28 final tables, Soverel finished in the top 3 spots an incredible 71% of the time, winning eight of them.
Not this one.
Jim Collopy Also Bags a Win
Despite only nine players turning up for the $25,000 buy-in event, the WPT and the Gardens Casino put on a second event, and Jim Collopy stuck around to win it.
Like Imsirovic and Soverel, Collopy also enjoyed his richest year in 2019 with $590,796 in prize money. The win is his second cash in the Gardens Casino after his deep run in the 2019 WPT Gardens Poker Championship ended in 26th place.
Amongst Collopy’s seven titles sits a World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet victory after winning a 172-entrant AUD 1,650 Pot-Limit Omaha contest during the 2013 World Series of Poker Asia-Pacific (WSOP-APAC).
It’s rare to see Collopy playing at these stakes, and his $245,000 purse is the second-best of his life behind the $274,924 he collected for finishing runner-up to Gus Hansen in a £10,350 NLHE Heads-Up High Roller at the 2010 World Series of Poker Europe (WSOPE) in London.
Collopy is more likely to step on a big ladder than slide down the throat of a giraffe. He warmed up for this one by winning the 16-entrant $10,000 NLHE High Roller at the World Series of Poker Circuit (WSOPC) at The Bike at the beginning of December.
The high stakes poker world is hardly spinning around like a seagull, right-wing smashed by a serial killer’s slingshot, but boy oh boy has the Phil Galfond challenge attracted more eyeballs than a strip poker livestream.
On November 19, in a bid to make Run It Once Poker more crop circle than Arctic Circle, Phil Galfond, issued a high stakes heads-up challenge to every single player in the universe.
Galfond wanted to face rival online poker training coaches in sessions of €100/€200 Pot-Limit Omaha (PLO) and offered similar but negotiable terms for all other forms of poker to mere mortals.
With the tap turned on, a trickle soon became a tsunami with a high volume flicking in their interests with the zeal of a chain smoker flicking his dimps into an ashtray.
The first of these epic heads-up battles take place at 8 am (PST), January 22, where Galfond squares off, fingers and thumbs, with ‘VeniVidi1993.’ The pair will compete at stakes of €100/€200 Pot-Limit Omaha (PLO), four hours a day, five days a week, until they reach a ceiling of 25,000 hands.
‘Veni Vidi1993,’ is the bookies favourite with PokerShares offering odds of 1.74, with Galfond an outside bet at 2.13, There’s also a side bet up for grabs with Galfond’s €200k versus VeniVidi’s €100k.
You can watch the entire squabble on Twitch/RunItOncePoker.
Here are the rest of the jigsaw pieces.
No dates on these, yet.
The Action
ActionFreak – €150/€300 PLO over 15k hands. Jungleman – €100/€200 PLO over 7.5k hands Brandon Adams – $100/$200 PLO over 40hrs of live poker Chance Kornuth – €100/€200 PLO over 25k hands Bill Perkins & The Thirst Lounge – €100/€200 PLO over 50k hands or a €400k loss
Side Bet Info
VeniVidi1993 – Side bet of Phil’s €200k to VeniVidi’s €100k ActionFreak – Side bet of Phil’s €150k to ActionFreak’s €150k Jungleman – TBD Brandon Adams – Side Bet of Phil’s $150k to Brandon’s $100k Chance Kornuth – Side Bet of Phil’s €1m to Chance’s €250k Bill Perkins & The Thirst Lounge – Side Bet of Phil’s $800k to Bill’s $200k
PokerShares Odds
Galfond (2.16) v VeniVidi1993 (1.73)
Galfond (2.25) v ActionFreak (1.66)
Galfond (1.91) v Jungleman (1.95)
Galfond (1.60) v Adams (2.40)
Please Sir, Can I Have Some More
There’s still time for more action.
With only Chance Kornuth taking up the online coaching challenge, it seems the attention has swerved to an online poker room battle. Rob Yong surfaced first, accepting that he would have ‘little chance of winning,’ but respects Galfond’s PR initiative, and would like to support it.
Negotiations between the RunItOnce Poker founder and partypoker associate are currently underway.
Then Luke Schwartz got involved in the gob on gob action.
Solve for why @PhilGalfond trying to promote theese pigeon challenges . Not a single fuker cares wether u can beat some online nobody like venvidi at this pigeon solved online omaha shit . Let's set a challenge any LIMIT or big bet mix game of your choice me v u il give you odds
A Galfond versus Schwartz battle would boost the live stream for sure, and according to an interview with PokerNews, aired on January 13, Galfond believes the match will go ahead.
One dynamite match shelved would have pitted Run It Once Poker with GGPoker. In the wake of Luke Schwartz’s early Twitter back and forth with Galfond, Bryn Kenney got involved, and it ended with Galfond offering Kenney a seat.
Kenney, however, declined.
Too much of a solver game now, don’t play HU anymore and realized how much time I’d have to spend not nearly worth it. But I remember u quitting me hu plo and hu nl back when I was playing both after smashing u around 1 session of each
Ralph Waldo Emerson once said that “doing well is the result of doing good. That’s what capitalism is all about.” I don’t know if Joao Vieira is a man who focuses on doing good, but thanks to capitalism, he has found something that he does well.
In the past 12-months, the Portuguese star has plagued the poker populace with outstanding displays, both online and live, and he rounded off the partypoker MILLIONS UK with another tick in the win column after sending 94-victims to the infirmary in the $10,300 buy-in, $1m GTD No-Limit Hold ’em (NLHE) High Roller.
The event landed partypoker with a $30,000 overlay. Still, Rob Yong’s democratic approach to running a poker company means the series ends with smiles on everyone’s faces, after another brilliantly organised event. He builds them, and people come.
Vieira’s win comes on the back of his best year in live tournament poker, earning $1.36m, 12-months after his previous best annual haul of $876,766. The Winamax pro’s crowning achievement in 2019 was winning his first World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet: taking down the ultra-competitive 815-entrant $5,000 NLHE 6-Handed for $758,011 (his personal best score).
The multi-faceted Vieira also grabbed most of the oxygen in the major online festivals during 2019, winning two titles at the PokerStars Spring Championships of Online Poker (SCOOP) and three at the World Championships of Online Poker (WCOOP).
Dusk till Dawn (DTD) has been a decent venue for Vieira in the past 12-months. The last time he was in town he finished 7/105 in the same event and made money in the Main Event a feat he replicated this time around finishing a respectable 64th place.
Vieira currently tops the Portuguese All-Time Money List with $3.8m.
Vieira defeated the in-form Kahle Burns in heads-up action. The recently crowned 2019 Global Poker Index (GPI) Australian Player of the Year (PoY) banked the $165,000 consolation prize three days after winning the $25,500 NLHE Super High Roller for $350,000.
Burns overcame a heads-up deficit versus Igor Kurganov to win that $25,500 event, and the Raising for Effective Giving (REG) co-founder, also made money in this one, finishing in sixth place.
There was also a place on the podium for Alex Foxen. The GPI World #1, and 2019 GPI PoY winner, finished third, his seventh major final table in the past four weeks.
partypoker was also well represented at the final table with two members of Team partypoker puffing up pillows in Joni Jouhkimainen (4th) and Joao Simao (5th).
Here are the final table results.
$10k Final Table Results
Joao Vieira – $250,000
Kahle Burns – $165,000
Alex Foxen – $115,000
Joni Jouhkimainen – $90,000
Joao Simao – $70,000
Igor Kurganov – $55,000
Michael Sklenička – $45,000
Fahad Althani – $35,000
Anton Suarez Wins The $10,300 MILLIONS UK Main Event.
The $5m GTD Main Event attracted 530-entrants, clearing the guarantee by $141,000. Anton Suarez banked the $1m first prize after overcoming a final table housing the World Poker Tour (WPT) Champions Club member, James Romero (3rd), and the former MILLIONS Main Event winner, Maria Lampropulos (8th).
Suarez rarely contemplates live tournament poker, but he did win a €2,150 NLHE Hyper-Turbo Knockout event during the European Poker Tour (EPT) in Prague a few weeks ago. He finished 5/130 in a €10,300 Pot-Limit Omaha (PLO) event during EPT Barcelona in the summer.
High rollers who went deep in this one include Patrick Leonard (17th), Sam Grafton (31st) Niall Farrell (38th), and Adrian Mateos (40th).
MILLIONS Main Event Final Table Results
Anton Suarez – $1,000,000
Christian Rudolph – $620,000
James Romero – $420,000
James Clarke – $311,000
Fredrick Andersson – $230,000
Weijie Zheng – $170,000
Jack Hardcastle – $130,000
Maria Lampropulos – $100,000
Jonathan Karamalikis , the man with the confidence to call himself ‘xMONSTERxDONGx’ is a bulldozer of late, pushing bodies to the wrong side of the rail with the efficiency of the world’s busiest graveyard.
In October, Karamalikis started dropping guillotines in the Victorian Poker Championships in Melbourne, finishing 6/112 in an AUD 1,100 No-Limit Hold ’em event, before winning the 422-entrant AUD 2,300 Main Event for $136,604.
From the Crown Casino’s parking lot to the Star Sydney, and Karamalikis has done it again, finishing 20/203 in the AUD 5,000 Challenge at the World Series of Poker Circuit (WSOPC) Sydney, before taking down the 53-entrant AUD 20,000, AUD 1m GTD No-Limit Hold ’em High Roller for $258,350.
It’s Karamalikis’s most significant score since finishing runner-up to Patrick Leonard in the 2017 $10,400 Bellagio Cup – an event where the Australian pocketed most of the money after a deal ($523,343), and he didn’t have it easy.
The final table included some of the brightest bulbs lighting up the street lamps in the land of Australian poker. Michael Egan followed up his win in a $2,750 No-Limit Hold ’em event at the recently held World Poker Tour (WPT) Cambodia with a sixth-place finish. Qiang Fu followed up his third-place finish in 2018 with a fourth in this, and Roger Teska finished third. Teska won the 2018 MILLIONS World $25k for $2m, and recently won a WPT title, winning the WPT Gardens Festival in July for close to $400k.
The heads-up play fell between Karamalikis and Ryan Otto.
Otto has only two Hendon Mob scores on his resume. The first came in November 2019, when he won an NZD 3,500 No-Limit Hold ’em event at the Skycity Festival of Poker in Auckland, and now this. In contrast, Karamalikis was featuring in his 24th heads-up encounter, winning a smidgen over half.
Here are the ITM Results.
ITM Results
Jonathan Karamalikis – $258,350
Ryan Otto – $159,833
Roger Teska – $104,718
Qiang Fu – $72,338
Mladen Vukovic – $53,048
Michael Egan – $40,647
After posting his Sydney win, Karamalikis flew to Melbourne and made a deep run in Event #1: AUD 1,300 No-Limit Hold ’em Opening Event at the Aussie Millions, finishing 3/1665 in the AUD 1m GTD event, earning a further $87,282. Michael Egan followed him and finished fourth for $63,055.
It will be interesting to see if Karamalikis will return to Sydney to compete in the Australian Poker Open (APO). The Star Casino rolls out the red carpet for Poker Central for the first time, and once the APO is over, the AUD 250,000 Super High Roller Bowl Australia provides a fitting climax to a hectic month of poker in the land down under.
What’s orange and sounds like a parrot?
A carrot.
Image from The New York Times
People working for the National Parks and Wildlife Services (NPWS) in Australia are currently dropping them from the sky, feeding wildlife whose food supply has been turned into ash by the raging wildfires.
The last time you saw a carrot in poker, Chris ‘Jesus’ Ferguson, was slicing through them with the ace of spades. That’s before Ferguson became one of the most hated men in poker, of course.
Putting things into perspective, Australia is burning.
The Pinnacle begins in the land that’s proving to be more pavement than porcelain and the Aussie Millions. Melbourne’s annual showcase goes ahead despite the poor air quality – the perfect time to spend the whole month in a casino.
The air quality in Melbourne has reached hazardous levels. Contrasting view from my apt. pic.twitter.com/bKwALPcYYD
The 2020 tournament is still a little wet behind the ears. None of the events that burn a molten hole in your pocket has begun, but a few stars known to flick in the occasional $25k have started well.
You don’t see Dzmitry Urbanovich on the high roller scene that often these days, but the Pole took down Event #2: AUD 2,500 H.O.R.S.E, beating 42-entrants to win the AUD 28,755 first prize.
Toby Lewis rarely plays live events, but when he does, he kills it, especially in Melbourne. In 2018, Lewis wafted through 800-entrants on his way to a sweet-smelling $1,178,513 win in the Main Event, and last year he was the star of the show, winning the AUD 50,000 Challenge, and finishing runner-up in the AUD 25,000 Challenge, for a combined haul of $1m. Lewis made it three wins in three-years after taking down the 258-entrant Event #8: AUD 2,500 No-Limit Hold’em (NLHE) Shot-Clock event for $102,182.
Moving from Melbourne to Sydney, and Jonathan Karamilikis won the AUD 20,000 NLHE High Roller at the World Series of Poker Circuit (WSOPC) in the Star Casino Sydney. Karamalikis earned $258,350 for the win, and followed it up with a 3rd in Event #1: AUD 1,200 NLHE at the Aussie Millions.
One player who found the key to unlocking his form in the past 12-months is Kahle Burns. The 2019 Global Poker Index (GPI) Australian Player of the Year (PoY) is offering you a 2-hour group coaching session if you donate $500 to help combat the Australian wildfires.
Sticking with Burns, and what an incredible festival the partypoker MILLIONS UK turned out to be for the man who came so close to capturing the 2019 GPI PoY title.
The Australian star won the 37-entrant $25,500 NLHE Super High Roller for $350,000, before finishing runner-up to Joao Vieira in the $10,300 NLHE High Roller for $165,000.
Here are the ITM results from both events.
$25k ITM Finishes
Kahle Burns – $350,000
Igor Kurganov – $222,250
Ben Heath – $150,000
Preben Stokkan – $100,000
Steve O’Dwyer – $75,000
$10k Final Table Results
Joao Vieira – $250,000
Kahle Burns – $165,000
Alex Foxen – $115,000
Joni Jouhkimainen – $90,000
Joao Simao – $70,000
Igor Kurganov – $55,000
Michael Sklenička – $45,000
Fahad Althani – $35,000
The $10,300, $5M GTD Main Event attracted 530-runners, clearing the guarantee, and Sweden’s Anton Suarez was the first to the treasure chest containing $1m. High Rollers who made a deep run include Patrick Leonard (17th), Sam Grafton (31st) Niall Farrell (38th) and Adrian Mateos (40th).
During the MILLIONS UK festivities, Rob Yong announced a MILLIONS Cyprus sometime in May 2020 with a $5k, $5m GTD Main Event, and is also proposing a MILLIONS Invitational London. The £5.3k event would be a qualifier only event, freezeout, no late registration, and seven qualifiers per table, with one invited amateur VIP guest. If the game gets the green light, it will take place ahead of Triton London in August.
Yong also found the time to appear in a live high stakes cash game. ‘Tricket’s Game’ featured on the MILLIONS UK livestream schedule, and the hairdryer, Luke Schwartz, ended the night as the big winner, turning £25k into £200k competing against the likes of Yong, Sam Trickett and Leon Tsoukernik.
WPT Gardens Festival Update
Switching continents, like mosquitoes, switch ankles, and the World Poker Tour (WPT) ensured there was high roller action on the North American menu despite the exodus to Australasia and Europe.
Jim Collopy defeated 14-entries to win the $245,000 first prize in a $25,000 NLHE High Roller, and Ali Imsirovic took the other one down, although details on entrants and prize money are proving to be elusive.
Darren Elias eats $25k WPT High Rollers for breakfast (maybe he was fasting last week), and recently the WPT’s Executive Tour Director, Matt Savage, named Elias as the WPT Player of the Decade.
Check out these stats.
$3,869,957 in prize money.
4 x titles.
5 x 3rd place finishes.
38 cashes.
12 final tables.
2 WPT Tournament of Champions final tables.
Rounding out the Top 10.
Anthony Zinno
Mohsin Charania
Eric Afriat
Noah Schwartz
Sam Panzica
Marvin Rettenmaier
Chino Rheem
Darryll Fish
Alex Foxen/Ryan Tosoc
WSOP Championship Events
The high rollers spoke, and the World Series of Poker (WSOP) listened and acted.
The schedule for the $10,000 Championships is out, and there will be a unique leaderboard in situ for the first time. The 2020 series will boast 16 Championship events, with 14 of them freezeout (The Short-Deck and No-Limit 2-7 Lowball Draw have a re-entry rule). There is a $10,000 NLHE Online Championship event for the first time, and the $10,000 Heads-Up Championship goes the way of the Berlin Wall (the WSOP confirm there will be a heads-up event, but at a lower pay scale).
Daniel Negreanu is a fan.
Fantastic list of championship events. Great job WSOP!
Most importantly, of the 16, only two (Short deck and 2-7 NLHSD) are reentry. Even better, they are limited to just ONE reentry.
Maybe it’s the post-Xmas spirit, but nobody has been slinging used condoms in poker’s Twitterverse this week. So, we have no ‘Beef’ to bring you, but we do have a debate.
Rob Yong wants to know if you run it once or twice?
The poll attracted 4,663 votes, with 57.9% voting to run it once. Here is what some of the stars had to say.
I prefer to run it once on television cuz: more pain. More pain makes for a better show. But in real life, (especially high stakes) I don’t mind to run it twice. Reduces variance.
Fedor Holz shares the books that have made a difference in his life including ‘Freedom From The Known,’ by Jiddu Krishnamurti, ‘Being Aware of Being Aware’ by Rupert Spira, and Yuval Noah Harari’s entire back catalogue.
We’ll have to wait and see whether Bill Perkins’ new book ‘Die With Zero’ ends up on Holz’s bookcase, but in the meantime, the Triton Million final tablist is turning his dream of creating a chess tournament into a reality. Perkins has teamed up with Chess.com to put on a match during the Skylar Chess Festival in Houston. The event takes place April-May 2020, and Perkins has stumped up $150,000 in prize money.
And just incase you feel like grumbling over the quality of your sushi, today.
I agree 100% with Daniel. I think I'm over the top on the subject because when I came out of that cancer hospital when I was 27, the miraculous recovery from 3 months to live to cancer free, made me realize how valuable our time is. https://t.co/tjgc11LA9A
