MILLIONS World is back, and for the sake of partypoker’s continued mission to be the market leader, let’s hope it’s here to stay.
Ther $25,500, $10m GTD MILLIONS World takes place Nov 13-17 as part of partypoker’s Caribbean Poker Party (CPP) taking place at the Baha Mar Resort in Nassau, Bahamas Nov 13-17.
In a bid to apply some rhythmic motion into the promotion, Rob Yong declared on Twitter his intention to hand a $5,300 buy-in, $5m GTD CPP Main Event seat to the first 100 MILLIONS World online qualifiers.
Satellites start on March 15.
partypoker designed MILLIONS World in 2018, and at the time it seemed like a strong reaction to the birth of the $25,000 PokerStars Players No-Limit Hold ’em Championship (PSPC).
Ever since John Duffy took over as President of partypoker LIVE, his goals and vision have been laid out for all to see. Duffy wants to be the best and to be the best you have to beat the best, and in 2018 the best carried the logo of a Red Spade.
Both events were successful, but with PokerStars attracting 1,039-entrants, and Ramón Colillas picking up $5m and change, there was only one clear winner.
In contrast, Roger Teska beat a 394-entrant field to win the MILLIONS World title and $2m first prize in the Bahamas. The following year, the event made way for a high-stakes frenzy that saw Daniel Dvoress, Wai Leong Chan and Adrian Mateos sweep all before them.
Who Has The Upper Hand?
Rob Yong has 25.3k Twitter followers, and you can bet a boiled egg, that plenty of them are fervent partypoker fans. Still, when Yong polled his tribe to see what the most prestigious European poker title was, 38% voted for the European Poker Tour (EPT), with the MILLIONS brand collecting 18.6% of the votes, third-place behind the World Series of Poker Europe (WSOPE) with 28.3%.
It shows that PokerStars is still the one to beat. PokerStars was always a model of par excellence and consistency, and it’s safe to say that the surgeon began carving that up when they rebranded to the PokerStars Championships in the wake of their move to go public.
The PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) became an essential aspect of the Red Spade’s marketing muscle, proving the annual adventure to the Bahamas is a crucial piece of the live poker puzzle.
With PokerStars shelving the PCA it allows partypoker to fill that void. Still, if they are to do it effectively, then there needs to be consistency.
Caribbean Poker Party (CPP).
MILLIONS World.
What is it?
In the same way, it never felt right for the PCA to be a part of the EPT; it doesn’t feel right for the CPP to be a part of the MILLIONS brand. ‘MILLIONS’ evokes power and prestige, whereas CPP feels cheap and small.
For Yong’s followers to one day select ‘MILLIONS’ ahead of an EPT title, I think these branding and marketing decisions are crucial, as is the consistency of having the same competition, with the same title, at the same time, year-in-year-out.
Ther Manchester Metaphor
The handbags at ten paces that we see with PokerStars and partypoker reminds me of the nascent of Manchester City and the demise of Manchester United.
Like United, PokerStars spent many years building a company that became an online poker institution. At the same time, partypoker played the City role, appearing in the headlines with less frequency than a mophead sees life in a college dorm room.
Then came City’s turn to shine with new ownership, an injection in cash, and a bigger vision. Simultaneously, United fell into a haphazard nosedive after their beloved leader, Sir Alex Ferguson, decided to call time on his illustrious career.
City is still a better team than United, but they’re not a bigger club.
For City to garrotte that honour, and hang the Red Devils from ceiling meathooks, the Citizens are going to have to imbue patience. City’s legacy will be built, trophy by trophy, until all there remains in the trophy cabinet in the red half of Manchester are more cobwebs and tales of a once glorious past.
The lawn looks like a group of moles have held their annual mole manicure convention. The sofa is covered in dirt. My daughter’s toys float amongst the hairs in the dog bowl.
Barbara Woodhouse, I am not.
Crufts is never on this television.
One of the downsides of sharing Airbnb accommodation with strangers, is now and then, they bring an animal into the home, and carnage ensues.
I have a two-year-old daughter who loves dogs. Unfortunately, dogs don’t love two-year-olds. There was a time in our dim and distant past when dogs would have enjoyed the same hierarchial status as the forerunners of humanity. They would have feasted on our harmonicas and used our flesh as icing on their cake.
These days, man is in charge, and the dog knows this, but when a kid walks into the room, the dog sees an opportunity to elevate its status. Watch the way a dog imbues shame as a toddler pets it, pulls it’s ears or shoves a chopstick up its arse.
It’s all about status folks.
Dogs, like us humans, exist to maintain the status quo of our status or to increase it, and this week, the people who live in the top tier of poker’s hierarchy were turning the Bahamas into a dog-eat-dog world.
The partypoker Caribbean Poker Party
It’s going to be a defining few months for partypoker. The Caribbean Poker Party (CPP) moved to the Baha Mar Resort in the Bahamas, and as part of the festivities, they guaranteed $10m in the $25,500 MILLIONS World, and the same quota in the $5,300 Main Event. With the $20m GTD Online MILLIONS around the corner, it’s safe to say that the online giants are taking a shot.
And like a blind man taking a leak, they have missed the mark.
The $25,500 MILLIONS World attracted 394-entrants, and on any other given day, you have to say that’s a monumental achievement, but it fell short of the guarantee by $150,000.
The winner was Roger Teska, a man who spends more time playing rock, paper, scissors that live tournament poker, but squeezed that limited experience into a few halcyon days that netted him $2m after beating Steve O’Dwyer, heads-up.
O’Dwyer was one of three people who banked million dollar scores. It’s been an incredible year for O’Dwyer, who has now earned more than $6m playing live tournaments in 2018, and more than a million in the online realm (where he currently ranks #10 in the PocketFives World Rankings).
The other player to win a million bucks was the regally named Charles La Boissoniere. It’s the first time the Canadian has ever cashed in a $25k, but it’s not the first time he has made a deep run in a partypoker LIVE event after finishing fifth in the MILLIONS North America event for close to half a million dollars back in April.
Here are the final table results:
Final Table Results
1. Roger Teska – $2,000,000
2. Steve O’Dwyer – $1,300,000
3. Charles La Boissoniere – $1,000,000
4. Paul Tedeschi – $700,000
5. Andras Nemeth – $550,000
6. Ben Tollerene – $450,000
7. Rainer Kempe – $350,000
8. Niall Farrell – $300,000
9. Joao Vieira – $250,000
Notable High Rollers who went as deep as stones at the bottom of a pond in this one include Leon Tsoukernik (14th), Isaac Haxton (17th), Nick Petrangelo (23rd), Benjamin Pollak (36th) and Timothy Adams (39th).
Giuseppe Iadisernia Wins The $50,000 High Roller
The named etched into the $50,000 High Roller trophy was another we are not familiar with in high stakes circles.
Giuseppe Iadisernia defeated a stacked field of 54-entrants to take down the $845,000 first prize. The word on the street is the Venezuelan made his money punting on the gee-gees.
Here are the final table results: Final Table Results
1. Giuseppe Iadisernia – $845,000
2. Sean Winter – $550,000
3. Ali Imsirovic – $400,000
4. Talal Shakerchi – $299,000
5. Sorel Mizzi – $225,000
6. Markus Prinz – $175,000
7. Benjamin Pollak – $125,000
Steffen Sontheimer wins the $250k Super High Roller
The biggest buy-in event of the series attracted 34-entrants, and the 2017 Poker Masters winner, Steffen Sontheimer, earned a personal best $3,685,000 score, after beating Sean Winter, heads-up.
Winter added $2,430,000 to the $550,000 he crammed into his piggy bank after losing to Iadisernia in the $50,000, and two of 2018’s biggest high stakes stars, David Peters and Mikita Badziakouski also ended up on the podium. ITM Results
1. Steffen Sontheimer – $3,685,000
2. Sean Winter – $2,430,000
3. David Peters – $1,420,000
4. Mikita Badziakouski – $710,000
Filipe Oliveira wins the Main Event
The $10m GTD Main Event failed to hit the guarantee by $925k, leaving partypoker with more than a million bucks in overlays. Three players earned a million dollars. None of the high roller fraternity sneaked into the running, although these guys deserve a silver star for effort.
Vladimir Troyanovskiy (56th), Brian Hastings (69th), Jason Koon (74th), Chris Kruk (77th), Alex Foxen (82nd), Matt Berkey (90th), Chance Kornuth (109th), Aymon Hata (116th), Ryan Riess (122nd), Sam Soverel (125th), Stephen Chidwick (126th), Lucas Greenwood (142nd), Dzmitry Urbanovich (165th), Samuel Panzica (175th) and Peter Jetten (176th).
Here are the final table results: Final Table Results
1. Filipe Oliveira – $1,500,000
2. Craig Mason – $1,200,000
3. Marc MacDonnell – $1,000,000
4. Pascal Hartmann – $800,000
5. Konstantin Maslak – $600,000
6. Diogo Veiga – $400,000
7. Alex Turyansky – $300,000
8. Joe Kuether – $218,500
Roberto Romanello wins the $10k High Roller
The Main Event may have been a few high rollers shy, but the same cannot be said of the $10k High Roller.
The event attracted 196-entrants, almost doubling the $1m guarantee, and Wales’ All-Time Live Tournament Money Earner, Roberto Romanello, topped a stacked field to bank the $450,000 first prize.
Look at the wizards who made the rostrum in this one. Final Table Results
1. Roberto Romanello – $450,000
2. Mustapha Kanit – $271,200
3. Daniel Dvoress – $210,000
4. Justin Bonomo – $160,000
5. Garik Tamasian – $125,000
6. Guillaume Diaz – $100,000
7. Joao Simao – $80,000
8. Adrian Mateos – $65,000
And these wand waving wonder men and women weren’t far behind.
Benjamin Pollak (9th), Joseph Cheong (11th), Steve O’Dwyer (12th), Orpen Kisacikoglu (15th), Thomas Mülöcker (16th), Lauren Roberts (17th), Mike Watson (18th), Jonathan Duhamel (20th), Isaac Haxton (21st) and Sam Soverel (22nd).
The $1,100 Finale and $1,650 H.O.R.S.E
Two more events to catch up on.
The World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet winner, Chris Bolek, won the $1,100 Finale and High Rollers who featured prominently in that event were Aymon Hata (5th), Rainer Kempe (8th), David Peters (10th), Fedor Holz (36th),
The WSOP bracelet winner, Joseph Couden, won the H.O.R.S.E, and two players who have each spent considerable time on the high stakes cash game tables of the past, Mike Sexton (2nd) and Bruno Fitoussi (3rd), also made money.
The Best of the Rest
In the summer of 2017, Patrick Leonard won three high rollers, back-to-back in the Bellagio and ARIA for a combined sum of then declared a live tournament hiatus so he could concentrate on his online game, partypoker responsibilities and leadership at bitB Staking.
Leonard fans are in luck.
It seems live tournament poker is on his 2019 schedule, and that will mean more sightings of him at the high stakes tables.
I took almost entire 2018 off of live poker, 2019 is going to be the year of showing up #trophyhunting ..predicting February 7th post standard flip tweet about sticking to online and how it’s so dumb
I remember trying to interview David Peters after he had won the $1.1m first prize in the HKD 500,000 No-Limit Hold’em Six-Max event at the Triton Poker Series in Jeju.
The man could barely speak.
Intercontinental travel is one of the impediments to success for high rollers, and this week Daniel Negreanu pointed people towards this article from Harvard Business Review as A ‘Fast’ Solution to Jet Lag.
Check it out. https://hbr.org/2009/05/a-fast-solution-to-jet-lag.html
As well as helping people overcome jetlag, Kid Poker is also assisting disadvantaged children. This week the PokerStars ambassador announced plans to host the St. Jude Against All Odds Poker Tournament in March, with all proceeds going towards the St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital.
If you want to support Daniel, then follow the blue line. https://www.stjude.org/get-involved/find-an-event/dinners-and-galas/against-all-odds.html
Philipp Gruissem is one of the busiest high rollers in the media at the moment. The partypoker ambassador featured in another interview this week, this time spilling the beans on his penchant for rapping (unless they misspelt crapping), his role at partypoker, and much more.
Check it out.
Sorel Mizzi has had a good month. The Canadian high roller who finished third in the World Poker Tour (WPT) Main Event in Montreal finished fifth in the $50,000 Super High Roller at the CPP, popped up on Twitter with a savvy idea for live tournament organisers to turn unused time bank buttons into big blinds to promote faster play.
Idea for @partypoker@partypokerlive live MTTs – in time bank tournaments , unused time bank extensions get turned in for 1BB each before they get replenished. Encourages + incentivizes players to act quick.
What do you think of Sorel’s idea?
And that’s this week’s Pinnacle.
There are no animals here.
If there were, there would be anarchy.
A man, comb protruding from his top pocket, walks toward the counter swinging his cane like Charlie Chaplin. A kid, eating baked beans, steps from side to side, preventing the piss from finding a home in his pants. Two teenagers play rock, paper, scissors to see who will pay for the vegan breakfasts.
But there are no animals.
When I think of the word ‘WORLD’, I don’t think of cathedrals, crowns and the smell of cloves. I think of the animals that our greed has driven off the face of this earth since 1970.
People like us, do things like this.
Since Paul, Ringo and John went their separate ways, humanity has wiped out 60% of the world’s species.
60%.
For what?
For land.
For meat.
For clothes.
For fun.
That leaves 40% ducking, diving and trying to evade death. At least 394 of them are sharks, and this week, they have been swimming in a cove at the Baha Mar Resort in the Bahamas.
Welcome to the partypoker Caribbean Poker Party (CPP), and MILLIONS World.
partypoker announced the $25,500 buy-in event in April; promising to invest $10m before going all Snow White and the Seven Dwarves with online satellite promotions.
Let’s call it a stretch goal.
By the end of Day 1A, I imagine there were a few shredded nerves within the corridor of power at partypoker when only 77-players turned up to play. 49 escaped with ribs, femurs and breastplates intact, and Chance Kornuth had more blood on his clothes than most, ending the night with the chip lead. A certain Steve O’Dwyer also emerged in one piece, sticking 830,000 chips into a plastic bag, good enough for 41 big blinds.
Then came the big one.
Day 1B.
The $10m cliffhanger.
Had the partypoker marketing machine made the MILLIONS sound mint?
205 players entered, taking the toll to 282, and with four levels left of registration time reserved for Day 2, the team was going to need a whole lot of crazy sharks with money to burn. 59 players made it through the day, and the Brazilian, Geraldo Cesar had the chip lead. A certain, Roger Teska ended the day with 1,170,000.
Remarkably, a further 112 players entered in the first four levels of Day 2, bringing the final number to 394-players, $150,000 shy of the $10m Guarantee, and I would say that’s close enough that we don’t have to mention any of those smelly smoky things from Havana.
39 players would receive a $35,000 profit, and three would bank seven-figure scores with the winner securing $2m. Day 2 ended with 59 in the hunt for that incredible sum of money, and it was on this day that O’Dwyer took the tournament by the scruff of the neck.
O’Dwyer flew into the Bahamas on the back of a reasonably quiet World Series of Poker Europe (WSOPE), only cashing once (13/95 in the €100k), but he did win both the £10k & £25k High Rollers at MILLIONS UK in Dusk till Dawn (DTD) for close to £800,000. And outside of the live realm, O’Dwyer had also pocketed $1.1m winning partypoker POWERFEST and PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) events. There were few in this competition with a bite as fierce as O’Dwyer.
The former European Poker Tour (EPT) Grand Final Champion, began Day 3 with the chip lead, and still had it going into the final table at the end of ten levels of play. Unofficial Final Table Chip Counts
1. Steve O’Dwyer – 81,275,000
2. Ben Tollerene – 74,750,000
3. Joao Vieria – 42,675,000
4. Andras Nemeth – 42,675,000
5. Niall Farrell – 35,525,000
6. Rainer Kempe – 34,325,000
7. Roger Teska – 34,200,000
8. Charles La Boissoniere – 26,225,000
9. Paul Tedeschi – 22,475,000
Let’s get to it.
Flesh & Bones: The Final Table Feast
David Vamplew’s doppelganger, Paul Tedeschi, came into the final day as the shortest stack in the room, but that changed soon after the cards went into the air. The Frenchman doubled through O’Dwyer KK>JJ. The final nine players blinked, and Tedeschi had gone from short-stack to the biggest stack in the room.
Then we lost our first player.
Tedeschi opened to 2.5m holding pocket kings, and the card dead Joao Vieira moved all-in for 16-bigs holding pocket jacks. A crocodile snap later, and the dealer was swiftly moving through a jackless flop, turn and river, and Vieira walked over to the cash desk to collect his $250,000.
Then we lost the Triple Crown winner, Niall Farrell.
O’Dwyer opened to 2.6m on the button with A6hh hiding underneath his fingerprints. Farrell, shoved for eight big blinds in the next seat, holding pocket deuces, and Roger Teska reshoved holding pocket eights in the big blind. O’Dwyer folded, and five community cards later, the table was minus the beast from the North.
A scarf followed Farrell to the rail.
O’Dwyer pumped the pot up to 2.5m from midfield holding AJo and then called when Rainer Kempe moved all-in from the button for 12 big blinds holding KJo. An ace on the flop sorted that mess out, and Kempe was finally able to show the vampires a little Aorta.
Six became five when we lost Ben Tollerene.
Tollerene opened to 3.5m with pocket sevens from the hijack position. Charles La Boissonniere called with the other two sevens, as did Paul Tedeschi with A9hh, and then Teska put the cougar amongst the pigeons by moving all-in for 29.3m, and only Tollerene made the call. The flop rained down 9d8d5c, giving Teska the lead, but handing Tollerene a gutshot. The 6d gave Tollerene that straight, but a cruel 4d on the river handed Teska a flush, leaving Tollerene with chip dust, and Andras Nemeth sucked it up in the very next hand.
Then O’Dwyer took command once more.
The American opened to 3.7m holding AK and then called after Andras Nemeth moved all-in for 71.5m holding pocket nines. It was a chip leading pot, and it went the way of O’Dwyer when an ace landed on the flop. Chip Standings Four-Handed
1. Steve O’Dwyer – 220,700,000
2. Paul Tedeschi – 77,300,000
3. Charles La Boissonniere – 52,000,000
4. Roger Teska – 44,100,000
Teska emerged to become O’Dwyer’s primary pain in the arse when he took most of Tedeschi’s chips in a pocket pair versus bigger pocket pair set up, and then O’Dwyer took his head when K7o beat A2o thanks to a seven on the river.
Then O’Dwyer took the chips and momentum into a heads-up clash against Teska when he took chunks from the regally named La Boissoniere. La Boissoniere opened to 6.2m on the button holding J6hh, and O’Dwyer defended the big blind with QTo. The players checked through to the turn on QdJd7s7c, O’Dwyer led for 10m, and La Boissoniere made the call. The river was the 2c. O’Dwyer bet 26m, and La Boissoniere made the call with the weaker two pair hand. That hand left La Boissoniere as the short-stack, and he passed them to Teska when his pocket nines failed to escape a bear trap laid by Q7o. Heads-Up
Steve O’Dwyer – 312,000,000
Roger Tesak – 82,000,000
O’Dwyer had led the field since the end of Day 2. He was the man to beat. A live tournament specialist with a near 4:1 chip lead over a man who rarely plays these things.
But this is poker.
In one of the first hands of heads-up action, O’Dwyer was five cards away from the win when he found a cooler spot KK v QQ only for Teska to flop a queen to give him the chip lead.
Then, in the final hand of what turned out to be a brilliant tournament for the organisers, O’Dwyer moved in with pocket fives, Teska looked him up holding T8cc, and an eight on the flop brought O’Dwyer’s reign of terror to an end.
The win was only Teska’s second of his career, after winning a 2009 event in the Bellagio for $26,095. His previous best performance came in 2011 when he finished fourth in the World Poker Tour (WPT) Championship for $371,665.
O’Dwyer will be disappointed to have come so close, but he’s played in enough of these things to accept when a $1.3m defeat is a win. O’Dwyer has now won close to $6m in live tournament earnings in 2018, a million more than he has ever won before. His combined all-time live tournament haul of $26,280,416 takes him above Phil Ivey in the All-Time Live Tournament Rankings where he is now ranked #8.
We may be in the midst of humanity’s sixth great extinction, but one species that doesn’t seem ready to perish quite yet are poker’s high rollers, and who would have thought that when the likes of O’Dwyer began playing $25k events with the frequency of $1k events just a few short years ago.
Here are the final table results. Final Table Results
1. Roger Teska – $2,000,000
2. Steve O’Dwyer – $1,300,000
3. Charles La Boissoniere – $1,000,000
4. Paul Tedeschi – $700,000
5. Andras Nemeth – $550,000
6. Ben Tollerene – $450,000
7. Rainer Kempe – $350,000
8. Niall Farrell – $300,000
9. Joao Vieira – $250,000
