Limestone is a tomb for creatures big and small. To acknowledge its grim reaper status, those in the know labelled it an organic sedimentary rock. Nick Petrangelo is no rock, but a few nights ago, he did spend the evening encasing creatures, big and small, in a tomb of his own.
He’s come close to a WPT title before, most notably, losing to Fedor Holz, heads-up, for the WPT Alpha8 title in the Bellagio back in 2015. He had to migrate to the online realm to claim a title finally.
Petrangelo didn’t just win a title, banking $494,550, a Hublot Classic Fusion Titanium watch, a seat in the $15,000 buy-in WPT Tournament of Champions, and had his name etched on The Mike Sexton WPT Champions Cup.
The American high roller outlasted a 999-entrant field to win the $3,200 WPT World Championship NLHE Six-Max on partypoker.
Here is the nutshell action.
The Nutshell Action
Elior Sion was the first player to leave the final table after shipping his final five bigs into the middle holding a raggedy ace. Jiachen Gong didn’t leave him in solitude calling and winning with pocket jacks.
Those new five bigs didn’t have a wondrous effect on Gong as he ended up the next man out when Petrangelo’s JdTd cracked his aces, turning quads. We were three-handed when Patrice Brandt exited in fourth. Brandt flopped top pair with Ah5d, only for Artsiom Prostak to hit a set of eights on the turn, when the money went in.
The tournament entered the heads-up phase with Prostak holding a monumental lead when his pocket jacks held against Arsenii Karmatckii’s AK on a blind and blind battle.
Heads-Up
Artsiom Prostak – 79.6m
Nick Petrangelo – 20.3m
Few whispers around the rail mentioned the name of Petrangelo in connection to the title, but the American star ground out the lead. Prostak did double once, but it wasn’t enough. Petrangelo made his previous night’s prayers come true in the final hand of the competition.
Prostak raised to 2.8m, holding AcQs, and Petrangelo called holding KcTc, and the pair saw a ThTs2s flop. Prostak bet 1.4m and called when Petrangelo raised to 4m. The turn was the 5s, and Prostak called an 8.3m Petrangelo bet. The Ah hit the river, and Prostak made the call after Petrangelo had moved all-in, and just like that, it was over.
Final Table Results
Nick Petrangelo – $494,550
Artsiom Prostak – $368,250
Arsenii Karmatckii – $278,448
Patrice Brandt – $192,900
Jiachen Gong – $128,100
Elior Sion – $92,630
Three more high rollers who ventured deeper than the hospitality tent at a Guns and Roses concert were Jake Schindler (7th), Chris Hunichen (9th) and Sergio Aido (18th).
You won’t find the name of the man who leads partypoker’s High Roller Leaderboard in any of the soon-to-be reported results. Luckily, for Alex Foxen, none of his pursuers took full advantage of his absence.
Three of the top five did gain ground on Foxen on Sunday.
Rok Gostisa closed the gap at the top to ten points after finishing third in a $1k for $9,750, and Juan Pardo Dominguez and Timothy Adams also inched closer with a third and a fourth-place finish in the $10k Mix-Max. Luke Reeves, who rounds out the top five, didn’t feature in the money (ITM) in Sunday’s events.
Nick Petrangelo was one of the biggest winners on the day taking down the 31-entrant $25,500 Main Event for $356,500. Michael Addamo, Christoph Vogelsang and Jake Schindler also finished ITM with Adrian Mateos bubbling.
Other Sunday High Roller winners include Isaac Haxton, Joel Nystedt, Aleksejs Ponakovs, and Andrea Panarese.
Here are the results in full.
$25,500, $750k GTD Main Event
31-entrants
Results
Nick Petrangelo – $356,500
Michael Addamo – $217,000
Christoph Vogelsang – $139,500
Jake Schindler – $62,000
$10,300, $300k GTD Mix-Max 2nd Chance
46-entrants
Results
Isaac Haxton – $184,000
Niklas Astedt – $117,734.70
Juan Pardo Dominguez – $59,800
Timothy Adams – $41,400
Wiktor Malinowski – $32,300
Fedor Holz – $24,865.30
$1,050, $100k GTD
107-entrants
Results
Joel Nystedt – $17,765.63+$13,107.50
Georgios Zisimopoulos – $2,828.12+$9,362.50
Rok Gostica – $3,062.50+$6,687.50
Thomas Meuhloecker – $4,625+$4,681.25
Tomi Brouk – $2,125+$3,477.50
Istvan Habencius – $1,312.50+$2,675
Robert Finch – $2,562.50+$2,140
$530, $200k Mini Big Game
492-entrants
Results
Aleksejs Ponakovs – $39,472.51
Alexandre Reard – $38,911.33
Dennys Ramos – $22,346.80
Alexandros Theologis – $15,545.60
Joao Ferreira Caetano – $11,027.66
Julien Perouse – $8,015.70
Alberto Meran – $5,708.15
Christian Rudolph – $4,129.30
$530, $50k GTD Turbo Knockout
129-entrants
Results
Andrea Panarese – $9,937.52+$7,414.32
Raul Martinez Gallego – $3,250+$5,312.25
Hristivoje Pavlovic – $2,140.62+$3,870
Sami Kelopuro – $500+$2,741.25
Richard Bell – $125+$1,935
Chris Johnson – $1,749.99+$1,531.87
Anton Nahorniak – $1,546.87+$1,219.05
Chad Eveslage – $1,500+$967.50
Leaderboard Results
Alex Foxen – 1012 pts
Rok Gostisa – 1002
Luke Reeves – 899
Juan Pardo Dominguez – 831
Timothy Adams – 827
I could be 20-miles away, stealing apples, and I would hear my mother calling me from our doorstep.
There were no mobile phones.
The spectre of Peter Sutcliffe still hung in the Northern air, and although he didn’t kill children, you would have thought we would have been closer to the bosom.
Nope.
Off we went, gallivanting around town playing kiss-chase, spin the bottle, and stealing fruit from an angry man’s backyard.
One place I loved was the library. I fell in love with Asterisk and Obelisk, and later Herge’s Adventures of Tintin. Then one day, I found a book called Deathtrap Dungeon by Ian Livingstone.
It was one of the earliest choose your own adventure books. Become a wizard, dwarf or elf; roll dice to determine your magical powers, and then battle with all manner of mythical creatures with the aim of ending as the hero.
I went through the lot – The Citadel of Chaos, The Forest of Doom and The Firetop Mountain Series.
Mundane life had me on a leash, and I was tugging like a maniac. I was desperate to avoid the clocking in and out life. I wanted to be a millionaire like Del Boy. I wanted any experience, other than the one I was stuck inside.
I wonder if Ben Yu believes he is the hero of his choose your own adventure. Yu is not a name usually associated with the high roller community, but all that may change after what has been a quite stunning World Series of Poker (WSOP).
Yu plays Magic The Gathering competitively, so I am sure had he been as old as me, he too would have found the allure of Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone to compelling to ignore.
And here he is, creating a page-turner.
And a few pages ago, Yu was faced with this question:
“Should I play in the $50,000 No-Limit Hold’em High Roller? If you decide to turn the opportunity down, turn to page 68. If you invest your well-earned gold, then turn to page 69.”
The young wizard turned to Page 69.
Let’s see what happened next?
The Young Wizard Takes on the Bad Asses of the High Roller NLHE Scene
When Yu sat down to play in the highest stakes No-Limit Hold’em competition of his career, the poker universe’s top Warlocks, Elves and the occasional greedy Dwarf surrounded him.
128 of them, to be precise.
The narrative allowed for 14 levels.
31 players survived.
Ten of them owned at least one gold bracelet.
The Austrian pro, Matthias Eibinger, led the way with 2,120,000 chips. Jake Schindler joined him above the two million mark.
The $100k High Roller winner Nick Petrangelo finished with 1,500,000. Elio Fox, the man who finished runner-up to Petrangelo in that event, bagged up 1,875,000. The man who dominated the recent Triton Poker Series in Montenegro, Jason Koon, ended with 1,450,000 chips, and Yu managed to stuff 1,500,000 into a clear plastic bag.
Top Ten Chip Counts
Matthias Eibinger – 2,120,000
Jake Schindler – 2,050,000
Isaac Haxton – 1,955,000
Elio Fox – 1,875,000
Daniel Merrilees – 1,865,000
Juan Pardo Dominguez – 1,650,000
Stefan Schillhabel – 1,570,000
Nick Petrangelo – 1,500,000
Ben Yu – 1,500,000
Jason Koon – 1,450,000
Day 2: Winter’s Coming; Yu Meets it Head-On
With blinds at 20k/40k, the action fell to Ben Yu in the small blind. He looked across at the dangerous, but short-stacked, Nick Petrangelo in the big blind, before moving all-in holding J2o. Petrangelo looked down at 88, called, and doubled to 2m. Yu stumbled to 1.6m.
One level later, and an important moment for Yu.
John Andress moved all-in from midfield, Daniel Merrilees moved all-in from late position, and Yu, who had both beasts covered, made the call from the big blind.
Yu: KK
Merrilees: AQ
Andress: 55
Andress flopped a gut-shot, but Yu faded any potential turn or river booby trap to move up to 2,950,000.
With blinds at 30k/60k, Yu cast a spell on the in-form Chris Hunichen to send him to the rail drawing three streets of value on QT468 holding KQ with Big Huni holding AT. Yu moved up to 5.5m, good enough for the chip lead.
It’s always nice to peer down and see the rockets, and that’s what happened with blinds at 40k/80k. Yu had them. The former champion Ryan Riess had pocket eights, and the pair went for it. Yu rivered the third ace for good measure and moved up to 6.2m; Riess’s tournament was left in pieces.
Yu’s next victim was Jason Koon.
Yu put Koon all-in on a board of 6d6h7d3dKd after rivering a flush holding Qd9h, and Koon reluctantly called with As6c for a flopped set of sixes. And then we had the final table after Yu eliminated Ben Pollak in a blind on blind battle holding J5o v 88. Another flush hit on the river to hand Yu another scalp. The Poker Gods were treating Yu like Zeus and co once treated Perseus.
Final Table
Ben Yu – 7,700,000
Nick Petrangelo – 5,100,000
Manig Loeser – 3,650,000
Igor Kurganov – 3,400,000
Jake Schindler – 3,400,000
Elio Fox – 3,025,000
Sean Winter – 2,850,000
John Racener – 2,340,000
Isaac Haxton – 1,200,000
Elio Fox was the first player to hit the rail when his pocket sixes bumped into the electrified fence of Sean Winter’s pocket jacks. Jake Schindler followed Fox to the door marked ‘exit’ when his A5o failed to beat the lowly looking 43c after Haxton flopped a pair.
And Haxton hadn’t finished swinging his fists.
The next player to feel his wrath was John Racener after he moved all-in holding KJo, and Haxton called with A3s, and once again turned a killer trey. We were down to six.
If there were a High Roller Breakout Award, it would surely go to Manig Loeser, and the German had another phenomenal run finishing sixth after his AK failed to beat the pocket treys of Winter in another sprint to the finishing line.
Winter then emerged as Yu’s primary threat when he eliminated Igor Kurganov. It was another race, this time pocket sixes dodging every ace and queen in the deck to send the Raising For Effective Giving (REG) founder to the rail.
Nick Petrangelo came into a league of his own, winning pot after pot to create a substantial chip lead. The $100k champ was running away with it, and then Yu eliminated Haxton AQ>A7 to bring him neck and neck with Petrangelo, with Winter looking up at them from the bottom of the cliff face,
Petrangelo – 13,100,000
Yu – 12,100,000
Winter – 6,900,000
Winter doubled through Petrangelo A5>T7s before putting in a string of consecutive winning hands to take a substantial lead. Yu slowed him down, doubling-up 99>A8, and then made the chip lead going into heads-up after sending Petrangelo home in third 44>ATo. Heads-Up: Short and Sweet
Yu – 18,275,000
Winter – 13,725,000
And to the final battle.`
Yu v Winter.
Inexperienced high stakes No-Limit Hold’em combatant versus one of the most experienced.
Yu didn’t want this to turn into a battle.
It didn’t.
It was all over before you could type YU.
Winter limped into the pot from the small blind holding A9o. Yu moved all-in holding KQo; Winter called. The J73r flop was clean for Winter, but the Kh on the turn put Yu one card away from victory. The 6d finished the action and Yu was the only wizard left with chips.
So what would Yu’s next choose your own adventure be?
The One Drop? “I think that’s too much for me,” Yu told PokerNews after his win. “I don’t think I’m one of the top 10 or maybe even 20 players in this hundred person field.”
It seems Yu also has a high humility score.
Yu first registered a live tournament ITM finish back in 2008 when he placed 69th in a $1,500 Limit Hold’em Shootout at the WSOP. It wasn’t until 2014 that Yu began competing in the $10k Championship events with increasing regularity, but 2018 has been a breakout year for the rising star.
In January, Yu finished 10/75 in the $25,500 No-Limit Hold’em High Roller at the World Poker Tour (WPT) Lucky Hearts Poker Open for $56,250. Then, during the WSOP, Yu finished runner-up to Shaun Deeb in the $25,000 Pot-Limit Omaha High Roller for $866,924 – a career high until his $50,000 performance.
Yu has won $5,250,029 playing live tournaments, with close to $3m of that bounty earned this year.
He has cashed 15 times at the WSOP, made four final tables, won a bracelet, and has earned more than $2.8m, thrusting him into the business end of the WSOP Player of the Year race, where he is on the trail of his old nemesis, Shaun Deeb.
Here is that up to date leaderboard.
Shaun Deeb – 4,386,84
Ben Yu – 3,746.04
John Hennigan – 3,552.69
Scott Bohlman – 3,155.88
Paul Volpe – 2,859.76
If poker was dance, the European Poker Tour (EPT), partypoker MILLIONS and Triton Poker would be crazy street dance style, body popping and head spinning.
The World Series of Poker (WSOP)?
Ballroom dancing.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s the most iconic poker festival in the world. Christmas Day, your birthday, your first visit from the tooth fairy, your first Easter egg and orgasm all rolled into one.
But they are a little behind the times.
More reactionary than visionary.
But like a hemorrhoid slowly making it’s way down to the anus after too hard a squeeze, they are getting there.
This year, the High Rollers will have five reasons to leave the cash tables to descend onto the tournament tables, and the first of the famous five is already in the bag.
The $100,000 No-Limit Hold’em High Roller (Single Re-Entry) has passed been and gone, handing out over $10m in prize money, including three seven-figure scores.
Day 1 saw a total of 97 entrants each pony up $100,000 (Daniel Negreanu coughed up $200,000), and the most recent bracelet winner Elio Fox led the way with 180 big blinds. Fox won the first bracelet of the series, his second all time, when he beat 243 entrants to capture the $393,693 first prize in the $10,000 No-Limit Hold’em Turbo Bounty event, beating Adam Adler, heads-up.
Players could still enter until the end of registration on Day 2. For the longest time it seemed the number would be 104, when at the last minute a certain Phil Ivey threw his hoodie into the ring to make it 105. All told that was $10,185,000 to dish out to 16 players with the top prize of $2,910,227 looking as appetising as lamb chops to a starving beaten down dog.
It would be a long day, with Nick Petrangelo emerging with the most significant stack of the final ten players. The Day 1 chip leader, Fox, was a bushy tail width away from Petrangelo; the Global Poker Index (GPI) #1 Stephen Chidwick was third, and the super-duper in-form Jason Koon was in fourth.
The officials took a chainsaw to Day 3 to carve another four players away from the field. Chris Moore fell in tenth spot when his 98hh button jam ran into the pocket aces of Andreas Eiler. Fedor Holz joined Moore in ninth spot when his pocket fives lost the battle of the middling pairs when Fox turned up with sixes. Adrian Mateos exited stage left in eighth place when his QJo lost out to the KT of Fox, and the final table came into existence when Koon’s K5o failed to beat the QJo of Bryn Kenney.
This is what the final table looked like: Final Table
Seat 1: Andreas Eiler – 8,490,000 (42 bb)
Seat 2: Bryn Kenney – 10,200,000 (51 bb)
Seat 3: Nick Petrangelo – 12,200,000 (61 bb)
Seat 4: Elio Fox – 8,620,000 (43 bb)
Seat 5: Stephen Chidwick – 5,740,000 (29 bb)
Seat 6: Aymon Hata – 7,280,000 (36 bb)
Petrangelo began the day as the chip leader, and he quickly extended that lead when turning a flush in a pot against Fox who was determined to try his utmost to push Petrangelo off the pot after missing an open-ended straight draw. It didn’t work. Petrangelp didn’t budge and he moved over the 17m mark. Fox dropped down to 6.4m and Andreas Eiler became Petrangelo’s main threat with 11m.
The first player to lose his marbles was Chidwick. The World #1 opened to 2m on the button, Aymon Hata put him all-in from the small blind and Chidwick called. The UK-pro showed Q6ss, and Hata turned over the dominating AQo. Chidwick did turn a pair of sixes to give him hope, but Hate spiked an ace on the river to send the boy wonder home with $484,551 in his pocket.
Bryn Kenney was the next player to see his stack dwindle to a stick or shove size. The GGPoker pro put it in after Fox had raised from the cutoff, and two-time bracelet winner made the call. Kenney turned over pocket fours, and had the lead against Fox’s KJo until the king turned up on the river, crown and all, to send Kenney to the cash desk to pick up $646,927.
After Kenney’s departure the chip stacks looked a little like this:
Nick Petrangelo – 19.4m
Elio Fox 13m
Andreas Einer 11.7m
Aymon Hata 8.4m
Six hands after Fox killed Kenney, Andreas Eiler and Petrangelo tangled in a substantial pot that saw one of them take a chokehold on the competition, and the other left with thoughts of what might have been.
Petrangelo opened to 500,000 in position and Eiler defended the large. The dealer put out a JsJc6s flop, Eiler checked, Petrangelo made a 400,000 c-bet, and Eiler check-raised to 1.3m; Petrangelo called. The turn was the 4c and Eiler continued his aggression with a 2.2m bet and Petrangelo called once more. The river was the 7h, and this time Eiler applied the handbrake. Petrangelo had no such thought and moved all-in, Eiler took his hand off the brake and went tumbling over the cliff.
Petrangelo: 6d6c for a boat.
Eiler: KsJh for trip jacks.
Petrangelo moved up to 31.9m chips, three-times more than Fox and Hata.
It took one more hand to get to heads-up.
Hata opened to 550,000 from the button, and Petrangelo called from the big blind. The flop was Kc8c5d and both players checked. The turn was the 6s, Petrangelo bet 1.9m, and Hata called. The 9s appeared in fifth street and Petrangelo put Hata all-in. The call was made, and Petrangelo showed K7dd for the straight. Hata had top pair K3, and departed with $1,247,230 easily the best score of the German’s career.
Heads Up
Petrangelo – 39,660,000
Fox – 12,845,000
Fox started the faster of the two, picking up cards when he needed them, and it wasn’t long before the pair were neck and neck. Then Fox took the lead, and seemed to have Petrangelo rattled when he five-bet jammed holding J3dd, and Fox called with pocket fives, but a Jack on the flop and a they on the turn gave Petrangelo a vital double up because it was all over in the very next hand.
Petrangelp raised to 600,000, Fox three-bet to 900,000, Petrangelo four-bet to 1.8m, and Fox called. The flop rained down AsAh2c, and Fox check-raised to 3m after Petrangelo had made it 1.2m to play, and the call was made.
The turn was the 8d, Fox checked to Petrangelo who bet 4m, and Fox called. The river was the 3c, Fox checked for the second time, Petrangelo moved all-in and Fox called before turning over 5c2d for aces and deuces, and Petrangelo showed Q8o for aces and eights.
It was Petrangelo’s title, his second bracelet, and his most significant score to date, coming a week after finishing sixth in the Super High Roller Bowl (SHRB), a week that Petrangelo told PokerNews was ‘super intense’.
The win moves Petrangelo over the $14.6m mark in live tournament earnings. Fox had the consolation prize of $1.8m, and a place at the top of the WSOP Player of the Year (POY) leaderboard after his bracelet victory in Event #2.
Here are the final table results: Final Table Results
Nick Petrangelo – $2,910,227
Elio Fox – $1,798,658
Aymon Hata – $1,247,230
Andreas Eiler – $886,793
Bryn Kenney – $646,927
Stephen Chidwick – $484,551
The Remaining High Roller Events
$50,000 Poker Player’s Championship.
$25,000 Pot-Limit Omaha 8-Handed High Roller.
$50,000 No-Limit Hold’em High Roller.
$1,000,000 No-Limit Hold’em The Big One for One Drop.
