The ventilation around Alex Foxen’s airspace at the top of partypoker’s High Roller Leaderboard became a little frosty on Sunday night. The partypoker High Roller Leaderboard leader failed to feature in the final stages of any of the three games that took place on the day where God slipped a pipe into his mouth and donned those fluffy bunny rabbit slippers.
Foxen’s lack of partisanship with the in the money (ITM) finishes allowed Rok Gostisa to close the gap at the top after finishing sixth in the $10k, an event that Stephen Chidwick won for $176,000, the first sighting of the UK All-Time Money Leader at the top of a podium since lockdown.
Russia’s finest, Artur Martirosian, made things a little cramped in the top three after finishing third in the $25k, and fourth in the $530 event. Wiktor Malinowski sits in fourth after a fifth-place finish in the $10k, and after winning the $25k, Ali Imsirovic moves into fifth place.
Here are the results in full.
$25,500, $750k GTD Main Event
38-entrants
Results
Ali Imsirovic – $387,125
Rob Yong – $251,750
Artur Martirosian – $156,750
Michael Addamo – $95,000
Daniel Dvoress – $59,375
$10,300, $300k GTD Mix-Max 2nd Chance
44-entrants
Results
Stephen Chidwick – $176,000
Dan Shak – $112,615.80
Jake Schindler – $57,200
Timothy Adams – $39,600
Wiktor Malinowski – $30,800
Rok Gostisa – $23,784.20
$530, $50k GTD 6-Max Turbo Knockout
114-entrants
Results
Raul Martinez Gallego – $7,847.66+$5,459.38
Jelle Moene – $1,261.72+$5,453.60
Georgios Zisimopoulos – $1,460.94+$5,453.60
Artur Martirosian – $1,375+$2,728.22
Sergei Denisov – $1,062.50+$2,006.04
Miguel Seoane Iglesias – $2,523.44+$1,332.01
Tyler Goatcher – $312.50+$897.50
Chad Eveslage – $897.75
Leaderboard
Alex Foxen – 1531
Rok Gostisa – 1458
Artur Martorisian – 1296
Wiktor Malinowski – 1235
Ali Imsirovic – 1081
The penultimate day of the Poker Masters Online Series created two more double champions, pushing one of them into contention to create a double of another kind.
Ali Imsirovic was only 23-years-old when he took on the world’s best players and beat them, capturing the Purple Jacket in the 2018 Poker Masters. That was live, and this is online, but after Imsirovic booked his second win of the series after taking down the 51-entrant Event: #27: $25,500 No-Limit Hold ’em, he is one of the favourites heading into the home straight.
It’s the ninth in the money (ITM) finish for the Bosnian, and he’s now earned $1.035m gross during the series. The only player to win more than Imsirovic is the current Championship leader, Artur Martirosian, who still leads despite whiffing both Saturday contests. Imsirovic sits in third place with two events left to run.
Imsirovic beat Elias Talvitie, heads-up, to win the title. You may remember that Talvitie won the opening event, and has earned close to $900,000 through four cashes, making it a decent tournament for the Finnish star.
Alexandros Kolonias took fourth place in the Championship Leaderboard after making money for the tenth time, and Jorryt Van Hoof also made his tenth cash.
Here are the results.
Results
Ali Imsirovic – $446,250
Elias Talvitie – $299,625
Alexandros Kolonias – $191,250
Jorryt Van Hoof – $114,750
Linus Loeliger – $89,250
David Peters – $73,312
Ben Heath – $60,562
Event: #28: $10,300 No-Limit Hold’em 6-Max
Mustapha Kanit became the second player of the day, and fourth of the series to win two events after beating Matthias Eibinger, heads-up, to bank the £237,732 first prize.
Despite the double win, Kanit isn’t in contention to win the Purple Jacket, but the only man to win two Super High Roller Bowl (SHRB) titles is.
Timothy Adams finished fifth in Event #28, to move into second place on the Championship Leaderboard.
Adams’ 11-cashes is a record.
Here are the results.
Results
Mustapha Kanit – $237.732
Matthias Eibinger – $148,200
Sergi Reixach – $91,200
Koray Aldemir – $66,500
Timothy Adams – $47,500
Pascal Hartmann – $32,300
Juan Pardo Dominguez – $24,700
David Peters – $24,700
Michail Manolakis – $24,700
Dan Smith – $20,822
Ole Schemion – $20,822
Jonathan Van Fleet – $20,822
Championship Leaderboard
Artur Martirosian – 957 pts
Timothy Adams – 861
Ali Imsirovic – 857
Alexandros Kolonias – 823
Andras Nemeth – 807
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.
It’s not often you lose, and win, but that’s what happened to Ali Imsirovic in the 2018 Poker Masters finale, the $100,000 No-Limit Hold’em Main Event.
Ali Imsirovic Wins the Purple Jacket
It started disastrously.
The middle and end weren’t so bad.
Only four full levels had been played on Day 1 when the players held a pow-wow that led to a change in structure. On a positive, it’s good that the players and tournament staff can work together on such things. On a negative, this is the 2018 Poker Masters. There was a lot of talk about protecting the ‘integrity of the event,’ and if that’s the case something will have to be done to prevent this farce from happening again.
A decision was made to stop the clock with 15-minutes of Level 5 remaining, and then bring everyone back the following day, ending late registration and the rebuy period at the start of Day 2.
Rewinding four and a half levels, and only five people stood a chance of winning the Purple Jacket.
Ali Imsirovic (660 Pts)
Brandon Adams (510)
Isaac Haxton (480)
Jake Schindler (390)
Ben Yu (360)
Neither Jake Schindler nor Ben Yu competed in Day 1, and both Adams and Haxton fell before the end of Level 5.
Brandon Adams Eliminated
Adams opened the action with a 14,000 raise, and Justin Bonomo peeled in position. The flop contained more spades than one of those cheap, crappy shops you find at the seaside – Ts8s2s – Adams bet 16,000 and Bonomo called. The turn was an odd looking 3d, Adams jammed, and Bonomo made the call. Adams showed KdTc for top pair, and Bonomo showed pocket jacks for the overpair. If Adams was going to leave the ARIA with a Purple Jacket, in the next few days, then he was going to have to spend another $100,000 to do so.
Isaac Haxton Eliminated
Haxton raised to 4,500, Seth Davies made it 11,500 to play, Haxton moved all-in for approx. 70,000, and Davies made the call. Haxton showed AQ, but Davies had him dominated with AK. Five community cards changed nothing. Like Adams before him, Haxton would have to buy back in for another $100,000 if he was to try and win the Purple Jacket. Day 2
By the time the cards were in the air, the field had swelled to 25 players, including Ike Haxton and Brandon Stevens, and not Jake Schindler or Ben Yu.
Here’s how the Poker Masters climaxed.
Isaac Haxton Eliminated in 17th Place.
The action folded to Haxton in the small blind, and he made up the change. Bryn Kenney raised to 13,000 in the big blind, and Haxton called. The flop was Th9d8c, Kenney bet 16,000, and Haxton called. The turn card was the Ks, and the same action ensued, this time for 47,000. The final card was the Ah, Haxton checked, Kenney put him all-in, and Haxton called. The partypoker ambassador had turned two pairs, but Kenney had it from the off, flopping a set of tens.
Haxton would not be winning the Poker Masters.
Ali Imsirovic Eliminated in 13th Place.
Then hope for Adams.
Imsirovic limped into the action from the small blind holding pocket tens, and then shoved over a Stephen Chidwick raise from the big blind holding AhTs; Chidwick called. The dealer laid the AsJs7hQs3c onto the board, and Chidwick had sent the Purple Jacket favourite to the rail. If Brandon Adams could finish third or higher, then the title would be his. Otherwise, Imsirovic would take the honour.
And take the honour he did.
Brandon Adams Eliminated in 7th Place.
It was a tremendous series for Adams making the final table of the first three events including winning Event #2: $25,000 No-Limit Hold’em, but Imsirovic’s back-to-back titles in Event#5 & 6 proved too much of a hurdle for Adams to overcome.
It was a brave last stand.
Aldemir opened to 13,000 with 98ss, and Adams moved all-in holding AJo in the cutoff. Dan Smith picked up AQhh on the button and called, everyone else folded. Smith would go on to flop the top two pairs and then hit the third queen for good measure on the river. Adams was out. Ali Imsirovic was the 2018 Poker Masters winner.
But we still had a million bucks to hand out.
Day 2 ended with a final table of four.
Final Table Tale of the Tape
Seat 1: Dan Smith – 2,030,000
Seat 2: David Peters – 2,230,000
Seat 3: Bryn Kenney – 227,000
Seat 4: Koray Aldemir – 541,000 Day 3
Bryn Kenney Eliminated in 4th Place.
Kenny moved all-in for 185,000, and Aldemir also moved all-in for 422,000. Peters and Smith let the pair have a scrap. It went a little something like this:
Aldemir: QcJh
Kenney: QhTs
Board: As7s5d8d5c
Kenney was out, earning $250,000, and Aldemir left the hand with 637,000 chips, and a whole lot of work to do with his peers both holding more than two million of the things.
He put up one hell of a fight.
The three-handed action lasted more than five hours.
Here are the highlights:
Aldemir doubled through Smith on two occasions (JJ>KQ & AJ>AT) and then this happened:
Aldemir completed from the small blind holding Jc7h, and then called when Smith raised to 70,000 holding Ah8d. The pair checked to the turn on a board of Th9c2h5h, Aldemir bet 150,000, and Smith called. The river was the Jd, giving the German the best hand. Aldemir bet 175,000, but Smith put him all-in. Aldemir burned a time extension chip before making the right call, and Smith went from chip leader to short stack.
Peters doubled through Aldemir to take the chip lead AT>99.
Smith doubled through Peters in fortunate fashion after the pair got it in on 9d8d2c with Smith holding 87o for middle pair, and Peters well ahead with 94ss for top pair, only for Smith to hit a runner-runner straight combo to double up.
Koray Aldemir Eliminated in 3rd Place.
Aldemir moved all-in on the button, and Smith called in the big blind.
Smith: JsJd
Aldemir: Ad9s
Board: Tc4d3s3h8d
The jacks held, and Aldemir was denied back-to-back heads-up encounters, leaving Smith and Peters to fight it out for the million-plus prize.
Heads-Up
Smith – 2,570,000
Peters – 2,430,000
The pair agreed to reduce the levels to 15-minutes.
Peters moved into a chunky lead before Smith doubled up QQ>A9, but Smith couldn’t capitalise, and Peters finished him off K7o>A7s after finding a king on the fourth street to end things.
Final Table Results
1. David Peters – $1,150,000
2. Dan Smith – $700,000
3. Koray Aldemir – $400,000
4. Bryn Kenney – $250,000
Peters has now won three seven-figure scores in 2018 including finishing seventh in the Super High Roller Bowl China for $1,113,018 and winning an event at the Triton Poker Series, Jeju for $1,118,484.
Ali Imsirovic Wins the Purple Jacket
Had the ARIA and Poker Central not changed the structure from last time, David Peters’ two titles would have been enough for him to win as he earned slightly more cash than Ali Imsirovic ($1,343,200 v $1,288,600), and cash was the metric for success last year.
However, the organisers introduced a point system this year, meaning the 23-year old from Vancouver, Washington, finished ten points ahead of Peters, thanks to his three ITM finishes.
Imsirovic finished 8/69 in Event #1: $10,500 No-Limit Hold’em for $27,600 and 60 leaderboard points. Then he beat 66-entrants in Event #5: $26,000 No-Limit Hold’em for $462,000 and 300-points and cemented his win with victory in the very next event, Event #6: $52,000 No-Limit Hold’em, where he beat 47-entrants for $799,000.
2018 Poker Masters Final Standings
1. Ali Imsirovic – 660 points ($1,288,600)
2. David Peters – 650 ($1,343,200)
3. Brandon Adams – 510 ($543,000)
4. Isaac Haxton – 480 ($309,900)
5. Jake Schindler – 390 ($575,000)
Invincibility. It’s a lovely feeling. You could take a peg gun to the frontlines and emerge with more kills than Arnold Schwarzenegger. You walk into the cardroom, the Neocortex takes a peek around each corner, Bourne-style, and it’s the green light for the Cerebellum to send a memory into play laden with more feelgood chemicals than a Rolling Stones album.
The bells toll.
You study your opponents. Hardened chip fat. No unshaven legs. Every play as smooth as a babies bottom. You’re a reader of souls. A battering ram. While everyone else is yawning their life away, you are tuned in to the right frequency, the only frequency, the winning frequency.
And.
After taking down Event #5: $25,000 No-Limit Hold’em at the 2018 Poker Masters, that’s how Ali Imsirovic felt as he surged through Day 1 of the toughest poker tournament in the world like he was a Shinkansen Bullet Train.
Here was the tale of the tape at the end of Day 1:
Final Table
Seat 1: Sam Soverel – 430,000
Seat 2: Ali Imsirovic – 3,630,000
Seat 3: Jake Schindler – 835,000
Seat 4: Seth Davies – 465,000
Seat 5: Justin Bonomo – 980,000
Seat 6: Koray Aldemir – 710,000
Imsirovic’s chip lead was a colossus one, making him the favourite to win back-to-back titles, and overtake Brandon Adams at the top of the leaderboard. Schindler was making his third final table after placing third and fourth in the previous $25k events. The rest were making their final table debuts, including the world’s top money earner, Justin Bonomo. Here’s the Run-In
Justin Bonomo Eliminated in 6th Place.
Bonomo raised to 50,000 in the cutoff, holding AKhh, Aldemir three-bet to 170,000 holding pocket kings, Bonomo moved all-in, and Aldemir snap-called.
Board: QsQd8h6dTc
A cooler.
Bonomo was down to 65,000, and Aldemir had become Imsirovic’s primary rival on 1,925,000.
In the next hand, Imsirovic raised to 50,000 holding J8o, and Bonomo was all-in in the big blind with K2o. Imsirovic was behind but turned a jack to send the All-Time Live Tournament money earner over to the cash desk to collect his $141,000.
Sam Soverel Eliminated in 5th Place.
Imsirovic opened to 70,000 from the first position, Soverel moved-all-in for 225,000 in the big blind, and the man from Washington made the call.
Imsirovic: QsQh
Soverel: AKhh
Board: 6h4s9h2d
Soverel turned a flush draw, but the river remained as heartless as a politician and Imsirovic had taken his second head.
Jake Schindler Eliminated in 4th Place.
The action folded to Imsirovic in the small blind, and the big bully moved all-in holding 7c5d. Schindler made the call in the big blind holding pocket fours. A five on the flop gave Imsirovic his third casualty, and Schindler collected his $235,000 bounty.
Seth Davies Eliminated in 3rd Place.
Imsirovic limped from the small blind, Davies raised to 110,000 in the big blind, and Imsirovic called.
Flop: Ac6d5d
Imsirovic checked, Davies bet 155,000, Imsirovic check-raised all-in, and Davies called.
Imsirovic: 6c5c
Davies: TsTc
Imsirovic was ahead with his two-pair hand, and it stayed that way through the turn and river. Imsirovic would face Aldemir for the title. Heads-Up
Ali Imsirovic – 5,085,000
Koray Aldemir – 1,965,000
After eliminating all four opponents till this point, and hoovering up all the chips, the smart money was on a quick Imsirovic victory. However, Aldemir, begin the brightest and worked his way into a 4:1 chip lead. Imsirovic retook the lead briefly, before Aldemir took the lead once more, only for Imsirovic to double into the lead for the third time when his JT beat A5 all-in, pre-flop. Imsirovic never lost the lead from that point, and finally ground Aldemir down. The German jammed for his last ten big blinds with 98o. Imsirovic called with KQo, and turned a queen to win back-to-back titles, and put himself in the lead for the race for the Purple Jacket with one event remaining.
