High roller poker tournaments are for the brave ones, the ones who are not afraid to risk a large amount of money with the full knowledge that this money may vanish into thin air, if they are not making the right moves at the right time.
Over the past several years, Aria Resort & Casino in Las Vegas has been summoning some of the world’s bravest high rollers to provide them with a quality arena for quality poker action. Two such high roller battles took place last weekend at the gambling venue and both of them ended with final survivors chopping considerable pots.
The $100,000 No-Limit Hold’em Super High Roller event that took place at the casino on October 28-29 will be the one this article will be focused on. The tournament was concluded with Sam Soverel, Brian Rast, and Jake Schindler chopping the remaining prize pool. Based on their chip stacks, Soverel scooped the biggest share of what was left from the money, thus becoming the event’s champion.
The tournament attracted 34 entries who generated a prize pool of $3,332,000. The top five players received a portion of the money, with the minimum payout totaling $199,920.
Well-known high rollers like Igor Kurganov, Isaac Haxton, and Byron Kaverman, with all of them being frequent participants in Aria’s higher buy-in tournaments, took part in the $100,000 Super High Roller, but could not make it to the money. In fact, Kaverman was busted on the bubble, thus becoming the last entry to leave the tournament without a payout. Daniel Negreanu, the player who is topping the all-time live poker money list, also entered the event but eventually hit the rail in 12th place.
Tom Marchese was the first not to leave the tournament empty-handed. The player collected $199,920 for his fifth-place finish. Germany’s Fedor Holz was busted in 4th place for $299,880. At the point when there were only three players to contend for the $2.7 million left in the prize pool, the clock was stopped and the survivors started negotiating a deal. One was reached to see Soverel, Rast, and Schindler pocketing $1,024,364, $971,880, and $835,956, respectively.
This was not Soverel’s first victory in an Aria High Roller event. In 2014, the player took down the $50,000 Aria Super High Roller 4 for $480,000. Earlier in 2016, he collected $309,400 in prize money for winning the $25,000 Aria High Roller 23. Over the past several months, the player has boosted his poker bankroll with second-, third-, and fourth-place finishes in several more high roller tournaments held at the gambling venue.
It is also interesting to note that the Florida-based poker pro captured his first WSOP gold bracelet this summer for besting a field of 1,106 Pot-Limit Omaha specialists in the $1,000 Pot-Limit Omaha event held within the 2016 edition of the world’s most popular poker series.
Aria played host to another high roller tournament late last week – a $25,000 High Roller one. That one was concluded with Igor Kurganov and Jason Koon, the last men standing, chopping the prize pool. Kurganov took $328,155 and Koon received $273,765.
