When you work in poker long enough, you see the Corvettes coming up between the Cortinas, and in 2019, few looked as tip-top as Daniel Dvoress. The Canadian has been gatecrashing final tables of European Poker Tour (EPT) events for fun for a while, but it was at Triton’s starting grid where he looked most at home.
Dvoress made six final tables at Triton events in 2019, securing two runner-finishes, and netting $3m (gross). Yet, there was one thing missing from that impressive list of accolades – a win.
Until now.
Dvoress took down the inaugural Super High Roller Bowl (SHRB) Bahamas during partypoker’s MILLIONS World at the Baha Mar Resort, and it was a fantastic time for the Canadian to crack his cherry.
51-entrants made it the third most successfully attended SHRB of all time. The buy-in was $250,000, and Dvoress collected $4m for his troubles after beating another Triton Titan, heads-up, in Wai Leong Chan.
It was a final table brimming with the best players in the world.
Erik Seidel was making his third visit to an SHRB final table after his previous jabs fell short of the mark in 2015 & 2016. Jason Koon finished ninth in the SHRB China, and third in Las Vegas last year. Steve O’Dwyer is, well, Steve O’Dwyer.
Seth Davies finished runner-up to Juan Pardo Dominguez in the €50,000 at the European Poker Tour (EPT) in Barcelona in August, and fifth in the most recent $50,000 Poker Masters Main Event. Kathy Lehne became the first woman to cash in an SHRB event (she was also the first woman to play in 2016). Then you had Justin Bonomo, the beast who won both 2018 SHRB games in China & Vegas as part of his $25.4m annual haul.
Let’s see how Dvoress managed to sneak past all of those rabid wolves.
The Nutshell Action
Final Table Seat Draw
Seat 1: Daniel Dvoress – 1,925,000
Seat 2: Jason Koon – 2,720,000
Seat 3: Seth Davies – 2,915,000
Seat 4: Justin Bonomo – 1,430,000
Seat 5: Steve O’Dwyer – 1,935,000
Seat 6: Kathy Lehne – 2,100,000
Seat 7: Wai Leong Chan – 1,390,000
Seat 8: Erik Seidel – 885,000
The first player to fall like a calamitous crane was the man with the acronym SHRB tattooed into his pre-frontal cortex, Justin Bonomo. Following him to the wrong side of the rail were Koon and O’Dwyer.
Davies then made a river hero-call with king-high on a paired board only for Dvoress to eliminate him in the fifth place with a two-pair hand. Dvoress then set his sights on Seidel’s orbit, flopping a set at the same time the Poker Hall of Famer flopped a flush draw. Seidel made a pair on the turn and called a shove when Dvoress made a boat on the river. That hand reduced Seidel to chip sherbert, and he busted in the next hand to leave in fourth place.
The three-handed play saw Chan double through Dvoress, and Dvoress double through Chan, at which point, Dvoress held onto the chip lead like Dora the Explorer holds onto her map.
Dvoress kept increasing his stack, leaving Chan and Lehne duelling for a place in the heads-up battle. The final hand saw Chan get it in with sixes against aces only to hit his two-outer on the river to eliminate her and take his place in the final with a 2:1 chip deficit.
Heads-up lasted 90-minutes, during which time Dvoress had created an 8:1 chip lead. The last piece of action saw Dvoress’ A9 beat Chan’s J7 to win his first major title and $4m in prize money.
While Chan will no doubt be disappointed in losing, it’s worth remembering than the man from Malaysia has now earned more than $5m in each of the last two years, including an ITM finish in the Triton Million London for £1.2m.
Here are the final results:
Final Table Results
- Daniel Dvoress – $4,080,000
- Wai Leong Chan – $2,677,500
- Kathy Lehne – $1,785,000
- Erik Seidel – $1,275,000
- Seth Davies – $1,020,000
- Steve O’Dwyer – $765,000
- Jason Koon – $637,500
- Justin Bonomo – $510,000