The
World Series of Poker Europe (WSOPE) has always leaned more towards the elite.
When the event called London ‘home’ the use of the £ versus the $ created a
price hike, with a smaller curriculum geared towards to the grinders.
The
location may have changed, but the modus operandi remains the same, if not even
more accentuated.
From 13
October through to the 4 November, fans of the WSOPE can stakeout the King’s
Resort in Rozvadov as Leon Tsoukernik continues his relationship with the most
iconic brand in poker.
Last
week (I know, I know, I am slow), the WSOP and King’s Resort announced plans to
add another four events to the festival. What initially began as an 11-event
festival is now 15, and two of the four new games hit the To-Do Lists of the
types of people who park fancy sportscars in their garages.
The
most violent of the announcements is the addition of a €250,000, €5m GTD Super
High Roller. The original schedule had a €25,500, €1m GTD No-Limit Hold’em
Platinum High Roller, and a €100,000, €5m GTD No-Limit Hold’em Diamond High
Roller. It seems we’ve run out of gemstone superlatives. A €25,000, €1m GTD
Mixed Game Championships will join the €25,500, €2.5m GTD Short-Deck High
Roller. For the people with slightly smaller bankrolls, there will be a €2,500
Short-Deck, and a €2,500 8-Game, both with €250,000 guarantees.
Head
over to the PokerNews website for the full schedule because I can’t be arsed
retyping it.
WSOP
Vice President, Jack Effel, said the 50th Annual WSOP was so successful they
felt they had to take another look at the WSOPE schedule. They did, and thought
they could ‘enhance it.’
WSOPE High Roller History
The
first time the WSOPE held an event with a buy-in greater than €10,000, was in
2012. The €51,000 No-Limit Hold’em Majestic Roller took place in Cannes. Much
to the annoyance of Michael Watson, who beat 60-entrants to win the €1m first
prize, the event was a non-bracelet affair.
The
first WSOPE bracelet in a €10k+ event arrived the following year when Daniel
Negreanu beat 80-entrants to win the €25,600 No-Limit Hold’em High Roller for
€725,000. The game was significant because the win saw Kid Poker beat Matt
Ashton in the race for the WSOP Player of the Year award in the very last
game.
There
was no WSOPE in 2014, but when it returned in 2015, the €25,600 No-Limit
Hold’em came with it. Jonathan Duhamel defeated 64-entrants to win the €554,395
first prize in Berlin.
Then in
Rozavadov in 2017, we had two high stakes events.
Niall
Farrell joined the Triple Crown club after winning the 113-entrant €25,000
No-Limit Hold’em High Roller for €745,287, and Dominik Nitsche defeated
132-entrants in the €111,111 High Roller for One Drop, to bank €3,487,463.
Finally,
last year, Michael Addamo topped a field of 133-entrants to win the €848,702
first prize in the €25,500 No-Limit Hold’em Super High Roller. Martin Kabrhel
vanquished 133 foes to win the €2,624,340 first prize in the €100,000 Super
High Roller.
After Michael ‘The Grinder’ Mizrachi won an unprecedented third Poker Player’s Championship (PPC) back in June, the man who finished third in 2015, David Baker, sent his annual tweet to the World Series of Poker (WSOP) giving them advice on how to spruce up the event after only 87 people produced $50,000 worth of goods.
I’ve made this suggestion almost every yr. if @WSOP wants to make 50k PPC as special as it should be. Special start time, blocked off sections, food brought in, some incentive to start on time with a nice kickoff.
“I’ve made this suggestion almost every year. If @WSOP wants to make 50k PPC as special as it should be. Special start time, blocked off sections, food brought in, some incentive to start on time with a nice kickoff.” Tweeted Baker.
Following up on Baker’s tweet, PocketFives’ Lance Bradley, penned a piece on his home platform titled: 5 THINGS: The Poker Players Championship Deserves More Celebration, suggesting five actions the WSOP could take, to diminish the annual moan and groan from Baker.
Here is the article – https://www.pocketfives.com/articles/5-things-the-poker-players-championship-deserves-more-celebration-619630/
If you can’t be bothered reading it, here are the bullet points.
Use the PPC Champs as part of the Main Event Opening Ceremony.
Make the event more viewable for live attendees.
Change the table felt.
Improve the live streaming.
Find a sponsor.
While these improvements could make the participants feel ‘special’ I doubt any of them will contribute to a significant increase in numbers.
High Rollers like to feel special, that’s a given. However, what makes any $25k+ event a ‘must play’game, is the addition of players whom the elite feel they have the edge over.
Before the WSOP bows down to Bradley and starts pimping up the PPC, may I suggest they figure out how to attract weaker players who are likely to flick in $50,000 in the same nonchalant way a pro approaches THE COLOSSUS. And It’s Not Easy
Since the most iconic poker brand in the world cut a deal to partner with Leon Tsoukernik to host World Series of Poker Europe (WSOPE) and World Series of Poker Circuit (WSOPC) events at his gaff back in Rozvadov, the job of hosting high stakes tournaments seems to have fallen to the Czech entrepreneur.
Before a single card hit the muck in anger at this year’s festival, the WSOP released an ambitious schedule to host $25k and $50k High Roller events (Both NLHE & PLO) in the Rio-based King’s Lounge.
The events were supposed to run each weekend from June 1 to July 8, and unless I am mistaken, not a single one has taken place.
Why?
I reached out to a well-known figure in the high stakes community, who prefers to remain anonymous, who told me that none of the games have run because there are no recreational players.
“There is no incentive for the pros to start them. The rake is absurdly high, and they can’t run without Leon. He either needs to play or bring his friends, or they don’t run.” Said my source.
And it’s not only the King’s Lounge that has had difficulty finding people to take a seat in a big live tournament this summer. The ARIA has also suffered.
Here are the results for the most recent ARIA High Rollers: Monday 11 June – $25k NLHE
30 entrants
Adrian Mateos – $253,240
Ben Tollerene – $241,760
Cary Katz – $120,000
Rainer Kempe – $75,000
David Peters – $60,000
Tuesday 12 June – $25k NLHE
18 entrants
Nick Petrangelo – $243,000
Byron Kaverman – $135,000
Rainer Kempe – $72,000
Thursday 14 June – $25k 8-Game High Roller
30 entrants
Philip Sternheimer – $275,000
Elior Sion – $220,000
Isaac Haxton – $120,000
Alexander Kostritsyn – $75,000
Luke Schwartz – $60,000
Monday 18 June – $25k NLHE
23 entrants
Ben Tollerene – $264,500
Sergio Aido – $161,000
Cary Katz $92,000
Igor Kurganov – $57,500
Sunday 24 June – $25k NLHE
14 entrants
Nick Petrangelo – $245,000
Cary Katz – $105,000
Two wins for Petrangelo and three ITM finishes from Katz the standout stories in what is otherwise a damp squid of a narrative.
Catz’ success moves him on par with Jake Schindler as the most prolific ITM finisher in ARIA High Roller event history.
Here are the top five.
Jake Schindler – 41
Cary Katz – 41
Tom Marchese – 27
David Peters – 24
Sam Soverel – 19
Bryn Kenney – 19
The Answer?
I agree with both Baker and Bradley that the $50k PPC is a special event.
If the WSOP want to increase the numbers, as well as the prestige and specialness, then they need to leverage their relationship with Tsoukernik or network with other people within the poker community that have the clout to pull in a handful of wealthy amateurs.
If this happened, and word spread, then you would see more people priming the pump ready to compete in the $50,000 PPC, and who knows, this could also include strict NLHE players willing to learn Mixed Games because the value in the PPC is so good.
We can frame poker’s pride and hang it on the wall.
The bitch is back.
The propeller is whirring noisily.
It’s time to take off.
The 49th Annual World Series of Poker (WSOP) has been a spectacular success. Hoards of people have managed to evade sexist mobile phone sellers on their way to millions of dollars in prize money, and more bad beats than The Handmaids Tale.
And it’s not ended yet.
For the first time in history, the organisers moved the $10,000 WSOP Main Event forward. It’s a sound move that gives those who fall out of that competition a reason to live and provides the $1m Big One for One Drop with the Rolling Stones like presence it deserves.
And it was a humdinger.
7,874 entrants created a prize pool of $74,015,600, making it the second-largest WSOP Main Event in history behind the incredible Internet-driven Jamie Gold win in 2006.
The winner will pick up $8.8m.
Each final table member earns $1m minimum.
But we have a long way to go before we can talk about a winner.
Until then, I want to get you up to speed on bracelet wins for three men who each have a role to play in our high stakes economy.
We will begin with a legend of the online high stakes world, and a man often touted as the next Daniel Negreanu, when it comes to the perfect ambassador for poker.
Phil Galfond Wins Event #60: $10,000 Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-Lo Championship.
Phil Galfond won his third career bracelet after beating 237 players in a format of poker he has never played online, and has only played during mixed game action in the live realm.
Speaking to PokerNews after his win, Galfond said, “I was figuring it out as I went.”
A man who has earned close to $11m playing cards at the highest stakes in the business is apt to do that.
Galfond rose to prominence in the game as one of the most fearsome competitors in online cash games earning a $6.6m profit playing cash games under the handle OMGClayAiken on Full Tilt. He is also up $1.4m profit competing as MrSweets28 on PokerStars.
Not only is Galfond one of the best high stakes online poker players in the world, but he is also one of the most excellent coaches. After building an impressive reputation on BlueFirePoker, Galfond created RunItOnce (RIO), an online training site providing top quality coaching for the best players in the world. He is also in the midst of creating RIO Poker, an online poker room, due for release this summer.
You won’t see Galfond playing many live tournaments, preferring to compete in the more lucrative cash games. He has only cashed in three events that carry a buy-in of $25k+ or more.
Back in 2008, he finished 70/545 in the $25,500 buy-in World Poker Tour (WPT) Championship banking $39,570. In 2011, he got his money back in the $25,000 buy-in NBC National Heads-Up Championship with a min-cash. In 2013, he finished runner-up to Steve Sung in the $25,000 High Roller at the WSOP for $744,841, in what remains his most significant live score to date.
He has won three career titles, and all of them ended up with a bracelet. In 2008, he defeated 152 entrants to win the $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha for $817,781. Galfond’s second piece of gold came in 2015 when he beat 77 entrants in the $10,000 2-7 Draw Lowball No-Limit Championship for $224,383.
He has won $2.9m playing live. Final Table Results
Phil Galfond – $567,788
Michael McKenna – $350,922
Ali Abduljabbar – $240,497
Chad Power – $168,275
Chris Lee – $120,263
Marco Johnson – $87,830
David “ODB” Baker – $65,579
Chase Steely – $50,086
Chance Kornuth Wins Event #63: $3,200 WSOP.com Online No-Limit Hold’em High Roller.
Things will get very interesting indeed when more states allow fully regulated and licensed online poker. This year, the WSOP hosted a record four online events, with the High Roller buy-in set at $3,200.
How long before that’s $10,000?
$25,000?
$50,000?
$1m?
It will come.
In the meantime, a legitimate High Roller won the second iteration of the $3,200 Online High Roller.
Chance Kornuth defeated a 480 entrants (356 unique and 124 rebuys) field, 56 more entrants than this time last year when the former November Niner Thomas Cannuli took the title.
It was Kornuth’s sixth cash of the series, and to date, he has cashed in six events carrying a $25k+ buy-in
In 2016, he defeated 122 entrants to take the AUD 790,560 (USD 547,874) first prize by winning the AUD 25,000 (USD 19,000) Challenge at the Aussie Millions.
The following month, Kornuth finished runner-up to Mustapha Kanit in the 58 entrant field €25,750 European Poker Tour (EPT) Main Event in Dublin earning €360,150.
In July of that year, he finished eighth in a 63 entrant $25,000 buy-in ARIA High Roller for $60,480. In October 2016, he won a 19-entrant $25,000 High Roller at the World Poker Tour (WPT) best bet Bounty Scramble for $186,672.
There was only one score in 2017 as Kornuth finished seventh in a 117 entrant $25,500 High Roller at the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open (SHRPO) for $93,600.
His latest HR score came in the CAD 25,500 (USD 19,000) buy-in High Roller at the partypoker MILLIONS North America Festival earning CAD 125,000 (USD 97,863).
Kornuth’s lifetime earnings exceed $5.9m.
His most significant score to date is $641,140 for finishing third in the 2015 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) Main Event.
He has won two WSOP bracelets, his first coming in 2010 when he beat 460 entrants to take down a $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha (PLO) event for $508,090.
Final Table Results
Chance ‘BingShui’ Kornuth – $341,598
David ‘bewater’ Goodman – $212,021
Timothy ‘poker.’ Nuter – $144,168
Noah ‘ ThePunter’ Bronstein – $99,809
Frank ‘flcrivello’ Crivello – $70,625
Taylor ‘ReadyGambo’ Black – $50,926
Justin ‘kingfortune’ Liberto – $37,355
Jonas ‘LobyPewis’ Mackoff – $28,016
Pete ‘petechen’ Chen – $21,596
Jean-Robert Bellande Wins Event #58: $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em Six-Handed
Jean-Robert Bellande is an integral part of the High Stakes live cash game scene. I like to think of him as a ‘gateway drug’ for the biggest games in the world – a bridge from mid to high stakes cash game action.
Talking to him in Montenegro, during the Triton Poker Festival, where he was organising and competing in high stakes live cash games, Bellande spoke humbly of his abilities, particularly in No-Limit Hold’em.
Bellande is a mixed game man.
So it was a shock to him and me both when he beat 621 players in a highly competitive $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em to win the first bracelet of his career, all the while sipping on a $400 bottle of plonk.
It was a sweet moment for one of the most loved men in the game. In 2008, he finished runner-up to Matt Graham in a $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em Shootout for $173,564. In June 2015, he finished runner-up to Mike Gorodinsky in the $50,000 Poker Player’s Championship for $784,828, his most significant score to date.
He finished 12/87 in this year’s $50k for $88,627. Final Table Results
Jean-Robert Bellande – $616,302
Dean Lyall – $380,595
Andrew Graham – $254,684
Tan Nguyen – $173,598
Eric Blair – $120,669
Kacper Pyzara – $85,570
The next big WSOP High Roller is the $50,000 No-Limit Hold’em schedule for July 13th. The WSOP experience ends with the $1m buy-in Big One for One Drop on July 15th.
The 2018 World Series of Poker (WSOP), Player of the Year Leaderboard, has a new mug sitting at the top of the rogue’s gallery.
“Shaun Deeb”.
The mixed-game specialist overtook fellow mixed-game supremo, John Hennigan, as the favourite to replace Chris “Please Forgive Me” Ferguson as the most consistent player at the most iconic festival in poker, after taking down Event #42: $25,000 Pot-Limit Omaha 8-Handed High Roller.
The event goes down as the most significant $25,000 buy-in Pot-Limit Omaha (PLO) event in history, but the introduction of a single re-entry clause for the first time in the game’s short four-year history gave it a bunky over that particular wall.
Day 1 attracted 192 entrants.
101 remained, parachute intact, at the end of ten hours of play.
The man of the moment, Michael ‘The Grinder’ Mizrachi was one star that ran out of nuclear fuel on Day #1. Joining him was the three-time World Poker Tour (WPT) Champ, Anthony Zinno, and the man who last year won more live tournament dollars than anyone alive, Bryn Kenney.
Konstantin Beylin was the overnight leader.
Daniel Negreanu was third.
Day 2 Belongs to Ben Yu
By the end of registration, the total field size had increased to a record 230 entrants. 49 players bought-in twice, meaning the actual picture was 181 entrants, making it the second lowest unique field size in history, down 12% on last year’s record field size of 205 entrants.
After 14 levels of play, it was Ben Yu leading the way. The man who set the Triton Poker Tournament alight in Montenegro, Jason Koon, sat in second and Deeb was in third. Other contenders included the former WSOP Main Event Champion, Scotty Nguyen, Jason Mercier, Erik Seidel, and the defending champ, James Calderaro.
Day 3
Here is how the final table looked heading into the last day.
Scotty Nguyen – 7,010,000
James Calderaro – 6,445,000
Shaun Deeb – 6,305,000
Ben Yu – 4,775,000
Jason Koon – 2,905,000
Ryan Tosoc – 1,300,000
It was interesting to see Nguyen make the final table. This year, the former champ must have hired a publicist, because he landed two very public sponsorship deals: an online cryptocurrency poker room, and a company that creates shit that you smoke to get high.
Last year, Calderaro outlasted 205 entrants to win the $1.3m first prize, so it was a stunning success for him to make back-to-back final tables. Koon once again showed that if you give him a game, any game, he will beat it.
But neither Calderaro, Koon or a spliff smoking Nguyen could get within touching distance of the bracelet. The only two players to cast eyes on the sliver of gold were Ben Yu and Shaun Deeb.
Interestingly, the pair clashed in last year’s $10,000 Limit 2-7 Lowball Triple Ball final, which Yu won.
But Deeb was unperturbed. “I made a joke to him at the unofficial final table,” Deeb would later tell PokerNews. “I said we both missed the $10K 2-7, the event we got heads-up in last year. I go, ‘We might be able to do it again, another game I’m a favourite on you heads-up.’ Ben’s a great poker player, but I have so much experience playing mixed games longer.”
There wasn’t much separating these two concerning form.
Deeb was making money in his tenth event of the summer, appearing in his second final table. Yu had cashed in nine games and was also appearing in his second final table.
There was a degree of separation in the chip counts.
Once Yu had eliminated Nguyen in third place, he took an 18.1m v 10.6m chip lead into his heads-up clash with Deeb. Two hands into their little tete-a-tete and Deeb had evened things up. One hand later he took the lead. Another hand and he was a 21.3m v 7.4m leader, and then before he had a chance to create a few Leaning Towers of Pisa he had won.
Yu opened up with a pot-sized raise to 900,000, Deeb three-bet pot to 2.7m; Yu called. The dealer placed the lowly looking 5h4c2h onto the flop, Deeb bet pot to put Yu all-in, and Yu made the call.
On your backs gentlemen.
Deeb: AsAh9s8c
Yu: Jh6h6d5d
Deeb’s pocket aces were ahead, but Yu had plenty of outs, hoping for either a flush or straight draw. Neither came. Deeb had revenge, $1.4m and his third bracelet.
Here are the final table results: Final Table Results
Shaun Deeb – $1,402,683
Ben Yu – $866,924
Scotty Nguyen – $592,924
James Calderaro – $414,134
Jason Koon – $295,606
Ryan Tosoc – $215,718
35 players made enough money to buy a medieval torture rack in this one including David Benjamin (7th), Jason Mercier (12th), Robert Mizrachi (15th), Craig Varnell (16th), Sam Soverel (24th), Mike Leah (25th), Erik Seidel (26th), Tom Marchese (29th) and Paul Volpe (32nd).
Deeb has now earned more than $5.5m playing live tournaments. It was his tenth career title. His previous best score was a million bucks, collected in a controversial $25,300 Mega Satellite for the 2012 Big One For One Drop when Deeb dumped his stack to Gus Hansen during heads-up because the Dane wanted the seat, and Deeb wanted to see if he could build a house out of one million tournament Lammers.
The History of the $25k Pot Limit Omaha High Roller
In 2015, 175 players created a $4,156,250 prize pool, and Anthony Zinno capped off an excellent summer with the win for $1,122,196.
In 2016, the field rose to 184 entrants, and the Finnish high stakes player, Jens Kyllönen took $1,127,035 from the $4,370,000 prize pool after an excellent win.
Then last year, James Calderaro earned $1,289,074 for besting a record field of 2015 entrants. The prize pool was $4,868,750.
Remaining WSOP High Roller Events
July 13-15 $50,000 No-Limit Hold’em High Roller.
July 15-18 The Big One For One Drop $1,000,000 No-Limit Hold’em.
So far, 30 players have paid a non-refundable deposit to appear in the 48-player cap event. Here are the names of the ones that aren’t shy at letting you know about it.
Daniel Negreanu
Antonio Esfandiari
Christoph Vogelsang
Bryn Kenney
Nick Petrangelo
Rainer Kempe
Dominik Nitsche
Steffen Sontheimer
Jason Koon
Phil Ivey
Adrian Mateos
Phil Hellmuth
Rick Salomon
Talal Shakerchi
Leon Tsoukernik
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.
Over nearly 50 years, the Main Event at the World Series of Poker has witnessed extraordinary dramas and created huge stars. The Paul Phua Poker School picks the top 10 events you really need to know
How did the poker tournament expression “a chip and a chair” come about? Why is 10-2 known as “the Doyle Brunson”? Where did the poker movie Rounders get its final hand? How did Phil Hellmuth become famous at 24? In what way did the WSOP’s 2003 live tournament change the face of internet poker? All is revealed below. If only history lessons at school had been this fun…
1970-1: The World Series of Poker is born
The very first World Series of Poker was not even a tournament: the pros were simply asked to elect the man they thought was the best player. Legend has it that at first they all voted for themselves, so a winner was only announced after they were told to name the second best player! That man was Johnny Moss, and the very next year, when a tournament structure was introduced to the WSOP, Moss proved the vote right by winning fair and square. He went on to be known as “The Grand Old Man of Poker”. Read more
1976-1977: How the “Doyle Brunson hand” got its name
There are lucky hands, and then there is the “Doyle Brunson hand” – a hand so ridiculously lucky that it forever more bears the name of the man who played it. Aged 83, Doyle “Texas Dolly” Brunson has now won 10 WSOP bracelets, but none more spectacularly than his two back-to-back Main Event wins. Holding just 10-2, he made a house to knock out his heads-up opponent Jesse Alto in 1976. Incredibly, the very next year he again made a house with 10-2 to knock out Gary “Bones” Berland. Read more
1982: Jack Straus and the original “chip and a chair”
You may have heard the poker expression, “as long as you’ve got a chip and a chair…” It means that no matter how few chips you are left with in a poker tournament, you always have a chance. But you may not know that this saying was born at the World Series of Poker in 1982. The story of how Jack “Treetop” Straus recovered from a single chip to win the Main Event and $520,000 is not just the greatest underdog story in poker, but possibly in any sport. Read more
1988: Johnny Chan retains his WSOP title with the “Rounders” hand
Johnny Chan, nicknamed “The Orient Express” for the speed with which he demolished his opponents, was one of the finest players of the 1980s. Not content with winning the World Series of Poker Main Event in 1987, he repeated the feat with a back-to-back championship title in 1988. And he did it with a trap so well laid that this final hand against Erik Seidel was immortalised in the poker movie Rounders… Read more
1989: Phil Hellmuth becomes the youngest ever WSOP champion
Johnny Chan nearly pulled off the historic feat of a WSOP Main Event hat-trick. For a third year in a row, he found himself heads-up after defeating all comers. Even better, he was up against some inexperienced young kid of 24. Unluckily for him, that young man just happened to be Phil Hellmuth, and he was so focused on winning that he’d left a message on his answerphone saying, “You’re talking to the 1989 world champion of poker”. This was the WSOP that propelled “the Poker Brat” to fame. Read more
1995: Barbara Enright is the first woman to reach the WSOP final table
When asked to name a female poker pro, you might immediately think of Annie Duke, Vanessa Selbst, or Liv Boeree. But to players of an older generation, Barbara Enright’s name would roll first off the tongue. As the first (and still only) woman to reach the final table of the WSOP, she paved the way for future female players in what is still a very male-dominated environment. And she would have done better than fifth place, too, if it wasn’t for a painful bad beat… Read more
1997: Stu Ungar wins a historic third WSOP Main Event
Ask any poker player who was the greatest of all time, and there’s a good chance they’ll say Stu Ungar. With a photographic memory that got him banned from blackjack tables, and poker reads so acute he once won a $50,000 WSOP heads-up event by calling with 10-high, Stu “The Kid” Ungar was one of the greatest natural talents ever. But after winning the world championship in 1980 and 1981, he fell prey to drug addiction. His extraordinary story was to have a triumphant conclusion at the 1997 World Series of Poker… Read more
2003: Chris Moneymaker launches the internet poker boom
Was there ever a poker player more aptly named than Chris Moneymaker? In 2003, the accountant and amateur poker player turned a $39 entry to an online satellite tournament into $2.5 million when he won the WSOP Main Event. His victory was the personification of the American Dream that anyone can make it big, and inspired a whole generation of online poker players. Over the next three years, entries to the WSOP Main Event increased tenfold. Read more
2007: Annette Obrestadt becomes the youngest WSOP bracelet winner
Annette Obrestadt was a few days short of her 19th birthday when she won the World Series of Poker Europe, in the WSOP’s first official bracelet tournament outside America. She was young; she was a woman; she was part of a new breed of aggressive online players who would change the face of poker strategy. Annette Obrestadt once won an online poker tournament playing “blind”, with her cards covered up – but she would need all her resources to triumph over the WSOPE Main Event… Read more
2012: Antonio Esfandiari wins $18m in the Big One for One Drop
The Main Event of the World Series of Poker has traditionally awarded the biggest first prize of all poker tournaments. But a side-event of the WSOP, first held in 2012, dwarfed even these sums. This was the Big One for One Drop, in aid of the water charity set up by the founder of Cirque du Soleil, and the first prize was a record $18 million. Antonio Esfandiari, a former magician, pulled off the greatest trick of his career: making a final table that included Phil Hellmuth, Brian Rast and Sam Trickett disappear. Read more
In the final part of our series on the World Series of Poker, the Paul Phua Poker School revisits the Big One for One Drop of 2012, where a former magician won the biggest prize in poker
The Main Event of the World Series of Poker (WSOP) has traditionally awarded the largest first prize of any poker tournament, peaking at $12m in 2006 and standing at just over $8m in 2016. But a side event, first held in 2012, dwarfed even those sums. Up for grabs was the biggest tournament prize in poker history: $18,346,673.
The event was the Big One for One Drop, a charity dedicated to providing access to clean water for all, set up by Cirque du Soleil founder and keen poker player Guy Laliberté. The buy-in was a record $1m per person, with the WSOP waiving its usual 10% rake and $111,111 from each entry going directly to the charity.
The final table was a Who’s Who of poker, including Phil Hellmuth, Brian Rast, Sam Trickett and Richard Yong. But it was a former magician, Antonio Esfandiari, who emerged the victor.
Who is Antonio Esfandiari?
Antonio Esfandiari is one of the most colourful figures in poker. Born in Tehran, Iran, he moved to California with his family when he was nine. While many magicians develop their interest in childhood, Esfandiari’s curiosity was sparked when working as a waiter, aged 17. He saw a bartender perform a trick, went to a magic shop to find out how it was done, and began to perform his own for extra tips. Soon the tips outgrew his pay check, and he switched to performing magic full-time. Esfandiari discovered poker at around the same time. His new-found earnings from magic allowed him to play, and the reading skills he learned as a magician allowed him to win. Soon poker became the job, with magic merely a hobby for entertaining players at the poker table – he became best friends with Phil “Unabomber” Laak as a result of their shared fascination for tricks, before either was a famous player. In 2004 Esfandiari became the youngest ever winner of a WPT event, taking down $1.4 million in the L.A. Poker Classic. His first WSOP bracelet followed a few months later. He was still just 24 years old.
Esfandiari wins the Big One for One Drop
By the time of the Big One for One Drop in 2012, Antonio Esfandiari was an experienced poker pro. He needed to be: as the biggest prize in poker history, with a platinum rather than gold bracelet to match, the Big One for One Drop attracted some of the biggest names in poker.
Coming into the final table, Esfandiari and Sam Trickett both held the largest stacks, and they maintained their lead throughout until just the two of them were left. By this stage, Esfandiari had three times as many chips as the British pro.
Their heads-up battle lasted just 16 hands. On a J-5-5 flop, multiple re-raises took both men all-in: Esfandiari held trips, Trickett a flush draw. Few real diamonds are as valuable as the one Trickett was praying for: the difference between first and second place was more than $8 million. But the magician’s luck held, and it was Trickett’s turn to do a disappearing act.
“From day one I just believed I was going to win this tournament,” Esfandiari said in a post-game interview. “I just saw it. I saw me winning the bracelet.”
Who is Antonio Esfandiari? Poker player profile
Antonio Esfandiari was born Amir Esfandiary in Tehran, Iran, in 1978. His family emigrated to California when he was nine.
He is nicknamed “The Magician”, after his profession before he took up poker.
He is famed for his outlandish prop bets and desire to have fun at the poker table.
He has more than $27 million in live poker tournament earnings
At the 2012 WSOP Antonio Esfandiari won the biggest single prize in poker history: more than $18 million in the Big One for One Drop poker tournament.
In the ninth of a 10-part series on the World Series of Poker, the Paul Phua Poker School recalls how an 18-year-old girl won £1 million
Annette Obrestadt was just 18 when she won the Main Event, and £1 million, at the first World Series of Poker Europe. It made her the youngest ever bracelet winner – so young, in fact, that it would be more than two years before she was legally allowed to play in Las Vegas. Coming four years after Chris Moneymaker turned $39 into $2.5m at the World Series of Poker (WSOP) in 2003, this striking victory by a young woman over established pros such as Gus Hansen, who finished in tenth place, showed just how much Moneymaker’s win had changed the face of poker.
Moneymaker, more than anyone, was responsible for the boom in online poker. Obrestadt was very much an online player: she had already racked up $800,000 in MTT cashes before entering the WSOPE. In an interview directly after winning the title, Obrestadt summed up why the new breed of internet players were making waves in live play: “I’ve played thousands of tournaments online. Most professionals only play 60 or so live tournaments a year so I think I have an advantage there.”
Who is Annette Obrestadt?
Born in 1988, Annette Obrestadt began playing poker at the age of 15 – hence her screen name, “Annette_15”. While Chris Moneymaker spun up his poker fortune from $39, Obrestadt says she never invested any of her own money at all, building up her poker bankroll initially from freeroll tournaments.
Living in Norway, Obrestadt developed a highly aggressive playing style typical of many Scandinavian players: her other screen name is “The Huntress”. Blessed with a natural talent, she also experimented and worked hard at her poker strategy. She is famous for once winning a tournament playing “blind”, with her cards covered up. She did this to show “just how important it is to play position and to pay attention to the players at the table”.
Her win at the WSOPE was no fluke. Since then she has amassed nearly $4m in live tournament earnings, ranking her second amongst all Norwegian players, male or female.
How Annette Obrestadt crushed the World Series of Poker Europe
The 2007 WSOPE Main Event, held in London’s Casino at the Empire on Leicester Square, was the first time that official gold bracelets had been awarded outside Las Vegas (the WSOP has now expanded to Asia Pacific as well as Europe). Obrestadt worked hard for hers, building her stack up on the final table from just half that of the chip leader. The Scandinavian-heavy final nine made for a lot of aggressive action, but it was the final heads-up poker battle that really counted.
Obrestadt was pitted against John Tabatabai. Their single combat lasted for nearly as many hands as the rest of the final table put together. Finally, Obrestadt got the miracle flop that would clinch her victory: on a flop of 7-6-5, she pushed all-in with top set, while her opponent held two pair and needed runner-runner quads to survive.
With the legal age in Las Vegas being 21, it is likely that Obrestadt’s record as the youngest ever bracelet winner will stand forever.
Who is Annette Obrestadt? Poker player profile
Born in 1988, Annette Obrestadt started playing online poker at the age of 15, under the screen name “Annette_15”.
Before switching to live poker she had won $800,000 in online MTTs, winning one tournament with her cards covered up.
In winning the Main Event of the World Series of Poker Europe in 2007, Annette Obrestadt became the youngest ever bracelet winner.
Her first prize in the WSOPE was £1 million, and she now has nearly $4m in live poker tournament earnings.
Read the eighth of a 10-part series on the World Series of Poker, and find out how an amateur turned a $39 online satellite into a $2.5m Main Event win
Or come back tomorrow for the last part in our WSOP series.
In the eighth of a 10-part series on the World Series of Poker, the Paul Phua Poker School recalls how an amateur turned a $39 online satellite into a $2.5m Main Event win
Of all the great moments in the history of the World Series of Poker (WSOP), the most transformative for the future of the game as a whole was surely Chris Moneymaker’s victory in 2003. It was a personification of the American Dream that anyone, regardless of their background, can make it big. Chris Moneymaker entered a $39 online satellite tournament, which led to a $600 satellite, which won him a seat at the Main Event of the WSOP. That $39 investment was to net Chris Moneymaker a first prize of $2.5 million.
That year was also notable for ESPN expanding the coverage and hole-card cameras being introduced on the final table. This truly was the beginning of the internet-fuelled poker boom, with entries to the WSOP Main Event increasing tenfold from 839 in 2003 to 8,773 in 2006. Poker writers now refer to this as “the Moneymaker Effect”.
Who is Chris Moneymaker?
Can there ever have been a poker champion more aptly named than “Moneymaker”? It sounds like an online poker nickname, but in fact his German ancestors made coins, and chose “Moneymaker” as an Anglicisation of their surname “Nurmacher”.
Born in Atlanta, Georgia, Chris Moneymaker further lived up to his name by studying accounting at university, becoming a comptroller. He was just 27 when he entered the World Series of Poker Main Event. Amazingly, it was his first live poker tournament.
Even so, Chris Moneymaker played well enough on Day One to catch the eye of professional sports handicapper Lou Diamond, who prophetically tipped him as his “dark horse to win the whole tournament”.
Chris Moneymaker knocks out Phil Ivey to make the WSOP final table
Chris Moneymaker did have a stroke of luck to get to the final table. With 10 players left, and holding trip Queens with an Ace kicker, he called Phil Ivey’s all-in bet on the turn only to find himself facing down a full house. A lucky Ace came on the river to change the course of history – sending the amateur to the final table, and denying Phil Ivey his coveted world championship win.
Once there, Chris Moneymaker made up in courage what he lacked in experience. The final table got underway at 2pm, and became heads-up at 12.30am. Moneymaker was pitted against Sammy Farha, and by now had twice his stack. Over the next hour, however, the more experienced pro chipped away at the amateur’s stack until the two were nearly even.
It was then that Chris Moneymaker decided to make his stand.
Both men flopped a flush draw. Moneymaker’s spades were higher, with K7 to Farha’s Q9, but the 9-high flop gave Farha top pair. Both players checked. The turn gave Moneymaker an open-ended straight draw as well as his flush draw, so when Farha now bet out with 300,000, Moneymaker re-raised him to 800,000. Still with top pair and a (lesser) flush draw, Farha called, but he must have felt rattled.
Chris Moneymaker pulls off a historic bluff
The river was a red 3: no possible help to either man. But at this point, sensing weakness, Moneymaker made a huge all-in shove.
Farha tanked. Top pair is not usually a hand you can fold when heads-up. Then again, Moneymaker had bet his tournament life on this hand – would he do that on a bluff? And would an amateur be capable of such daring against a seasoned pro?
Farha eventually folded, leaving his stack fatally crippled at 1.8m to Moneymaker’s 6.6m, and the bluff entered the annals of poker history as one of the most audacious the WSOP has seen.
Who is Chris Moneymaker? Poker player profile
Born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1975, Chris Moneymaker was an accountant before turning to poker full-time
Moneymaker turned a $39 online satellite entry into a $2.5m win at the World Series of Poker Main Event in 2003
His autobiography is entitled Moneymaker: How an Amateur Poker Player Turned $40 into $2.5 Million at the World Series of Poker (2005)
The online poker boom that followed Chris Moneymaker’s WSOP victory has become known as “the Moneymaker Effect”
In the seventh of a 10-part series on the World Series of Poker, the Paul Phua Poker School explains how Stu “The Kid” Ungar battled drug addiction to become “The Comeback Kid”
There are many who would agree that Stu Ungar was quite simply the best natural poker player of all time. His prowess at the World Series of Poker (WSOP) certainly supports this view. He is the only player to have won three Main Event championships (apart from Johnny Moss, whose first victory was achieved by a vote of his peers, rather than winning a tournament).
When Stu Ungar reached the final table of the WSOP Main Event in 1997, poker fans flocked in such numbers to see if he could win a historic third title that, for the first and only time, the television table was placed in the middle of Fremont Street to allow everyone to crowd round.
Who was Stu Ungar?
Stu Ungar was a card-game prodigy with a photographic memory. His card-counting at blackjack was so good the casinos banned him, and at gin rummy he defeated the man previously renowned as the best player by 86 games to none. In poker he proved equally adept, winning the WSOP in 1980, aged 26, and then again in 1981.
Sadly, addiction got the better of him. In the 1990 Main Event, he was found unconscious from a drug overdose in his hotel on the third day. Even so, he had built up such a commanding stack that he reached the final table anyway: by the time he was blinded out he had placed ninth. In the 1992 WSOP, he sensationally busted out 1990 WSOP champion Mansour Matloubi in a $50,000 heads-up event when he hero-called Matloubi’s river bluff with just 10-high – he had correctly guessed his opponent had had a gutshot draw on the flop, with the board at 3-3-7-K-Q.
Stu Ungar makes the WSOP final table in 1997
Despite having earned an estimated $30 million in his career, Stu Ungar was penniless by the time of the 1997 WSOP. A fellow player staked him the $10,000 buy-in at the very last minute, just before registration closed. Stu Ungar actually got off to a shaky start: he had been up for 24 hours trying to raise the money, and his tiredness showed. But from Day Two, Ungar put on a powerhouse demonstration of poker strategy and reads that has rarely been bettered. At one stage on Day Two he was seated with four former world champions: Bobby Baldwin, Berry Johnston, Doyle Brunson and Phil Hellmuth. But Ungar was the only one of these men to make it to the final table, with a commanding chip stack that was double that of his nearest competitor.
He showed his mettle early on in the final table when he got the crowd favourite, Ron Stanley, to relinquish the best hand on a big pot when Ungar re-raised the turn and then bluffed the river with air. Even that bet was set up in advance: he had previously shown a hand in which he slow-played top pair, so he knew his bluff would seem plausible. Ungar just kept on swinging until he was left heads-up with more than four times John Strzemp’s stack.
The outcome was never really in doubt. Strzemp was knocked out within six hands.
Stu Ungar, “The Comeback Kid”
In 1980, when Stu Ungar won his first poker world championship, he was nicknamed “The Kid”. After overcoming his demons to win the title for a historic third time, 17 years later, the press dubbed him “The Comeback Kid”.
But though Ungar could win at cards, he couldn’t win his own personal war on drugs. He never could kick the habit for long, and he died the following year.
Stu Ungar himself put it best, when interviewed directly after his 1997 WSOP victory: “There’s nobody that can beat me playing cards. The only one that ever beat me was myself, my bad habits.”
Who is Stu Ungar? Poker player profile
Stu Ungar made poker history when he first won back-to-back WSOP championships in 1980 and 1981, then won again in 1997
First nicknamed “The Kid”, he was thereafter known as “The Comeback Kid”
He is generally regarded as the finest poker and gin rummy player of all time
He had a photographic memory, which saw him banned from playing blackjack
Stu Ungar battled addiction for most of his adult life, and died in 1998 of a drug-related heart condition, aged 45
