Aria Resort & Casino, located in the heart of Las Vegas, has turned into home to quality high roller poker action over the past several years. Earlier this year, Poker Central announced that the popular gambling venue will host an exclusive high-stakes series that would see some of poker’s finest representatives clash against each other.
The Poker Masters, the name by which the Poker Central-presented festival goes, is entering its concluding stages with the final, fifth, event on its schedule, slated to kick off later today.
Poker Masters featured four $50,000 buy-in high rollers over the past several days. The tournaments were two-day ones and, as expected, attracted some of the world’s most prominent high roller players. The series will be completed with a three-day $100,000 event.
And while winning any of the five events is quite an accomplishment in itself, the player who accumulates the most winnings over the course of the whole festival will be crowned the Poker Masters Champion and will receive the one and only Poker Masters Purple Jacket. Although the final event is yet to take place, there are several players who have already positioned themselves quite well in the Poker Masters Champion competition. Here are the three players who are topping the leaderboard now and for now and their respective winnings from the series.
Steffen Sontheimer – $1,221,000
The German poker pro is leading the race with winnings of more than $1.2 million. The player cashed in three of all four $50,000 buy-in events, winning one of them. He first finished fourth in Event #1 for $204,000, then took down Event #2 after an all-German heads-up against Fedor Holz for $900,000, and finally finished fifth in Event #4 last night for $117,00.
With live tournament earnings of more than $4.7 million and particularly good performance since the beginning of the year, Sontheimer has made a name for himself as one of his homeland’s finest poker pros.
Bryn Kenney
Kenney has been a frequent participant in Aria’s high rollers over the past several years as well as in events of this kind to have taken place in venues all around the world. The player has won five high roller tournaments since the beginning of the year, with the Poker Masters Event #3 being one of them, and has brought his live poker bankroll to over $19 million.
Kenney took down the event on Saturday night, scooping a first-place payout of $960,000. Just a day earlier, he finished seventh in Event #2 for a $125,000 share of the prize pool. The player currently has a total of $1,085,000 in Poker Masters winnings and ranks second in the overall leaderboard.
Nick Schulman
Schulman started off the Poker Masters as the winner of the first $50,000 buy-in tournament to have taken place within the festival. The player captured a first-place prize of $918,000 for his triumph. He did not cash in the next three tournaments on the schedule, but his victory in that first one was more than enough to place him third in the overall leaderboard.
Schulman is yet another player we have been hearing a lot about over the past several years. His overall live tournament earnings currently exceed $10 million. It is interesting to note that the player collected his largest-ever live cash with his first in-the-money finish. Back in 2005, the player won the WPT World Poker Finals $10,200 Main Event for $2,167,500.
