Seth Davies warmed up for the World Poker Tour (WPT) Five Diamond World Poker Classic Main Event at the Bellagio by successfully defending his $25,000 No-Limit Hold’em (NLHE) Bellagio High Roller title.
This time last year Davies defeated 50-entrants to win the $341,920 first prize after defeating Isaac Haxton, heads-up. Fast-forward 12-months and Davies was at it again, this time beating a 53-entrant field to take the woolly mammoth share of the $1,325,000 prize pool.
Coming into the final table, four players arrived with the taste of iron underneath their tongues. The world of poker is full of hammerheads, tigers and bulls, but in 2018 there was only one great white. Justin Bonomo won $25.4m in an all-conquering year, and he’s followed it up with the second-best annual haul of his career: $5.6m.
Amongst Bonomo’s recent results is the 8th place finish in the $250,000 Super High Roller Bowl Bahamas for $510,000, and two wins on the Triton Super High Roller Series tour, winning an HKD 250,000 NLHE Short-Deck event in Jeju for $586,114, and a £100,000 NLHE in London for $3.2m. The former One Drop winner came into this one on the back of a 9/60 finish in the $10,000 NLHE event, and won this event in 2017, beating 27-entrants to capture the $310,500 first prize.
Then you had Julien Martini.
The Frenchman is fast becoming known as one of the top tournament players in Europe with his $3.7m 2019 haul a personal best. Martini, who finished runner-up to Ramón Colilas in the $25,000 NLHE PokerStars Player’s Championship in January for $2.9m, came into this one on the back of a 7/541 finish in the €10,350 NLHE World Series of Poker Europe (WSOPE) Main Event for €132,017, and a victory in the Poker Masters, taking down the $10,000 Big Bet Mix for $166,400.
Alex Foxen waltzed into the Bellagio knowing that only a superhuman effort would give him a gnat’s thong chance of retaining the Global Poker Index (GPI) Player of the Year (PoY) title he won in 2018. He’s still got a long way to go (ranked #10), but what a shift he has put in finishing 5/43, 3/27 and 2/60 in $10,000 NLHE events, and 5/127 in a $5,200 NLHE event. Foxen finished third in this event last year.
If anyone was going to be holding the hound’s leash in pursuit of the fabulous Foxen, then the smart money was on Seth Davies. The Oregon All Time-Money #1, followed up his $25,000 NLHE win at the 2018 Five Diamond with a win in a $10,000 NLHE at the Bellagio (Foxen finished fifth). He strolled into this one in fine fettle, after finishing 5/34 in the $50,000 NLHE Poker Masters Main Event for $136,000, and 5/51 in the $250,000 NLHE Super High Roller Bahamas for $1,020,000.
Bonomo would finish in eighth, Martini in fifth, and Foxen would pick up a further 226.42 GPI PoY points for his third place finish. Davies would use all of his skills, savvy and subterfuge to defeat Giuseppe Iadisernia, heads-up, for the title and $424,000 in prize money, erasing the heartache of losing to Juan Dominguez in the heads-up phase of the €50,000 NLHE event at the European Poker Tour (EPT) in Barcelona in August.
Here is the final in the money results (ITM).
ITM Results
- Seth Davies – $424,000
- Giuseppe Iadisernia – $278,250
- Alex Foxen – $185,500
- Julien Martini – $132,500
- Nick Petrangelo – $106,000
- Freddy Deeb – $79,500
- Joseph Orsino – $66,250
- Justin Bonomo – $53,000