The poker community is about to bid farewell to yet another good year for live tournament poker. Ever-growing attendance, bigger guaranteed prize pools, and wider variety of poker variants at festivals around the world were among this year’s highlights from the beloved felt.
For PokerStars, the world’s largest online poker room and the sponsor of some of the world’s largest-scale live tournaments, 2017 was a year of big change. The popular poker brand introduced its Championship and Festival series, the successors of its EPT, LAPT, EUREKA, and other live tournament series.
In a fashion very similar to its predecessors, both series stopped here and there, in different parts of the world, and attracted thousands of professional and recreational players in the process. Here it is important to note that of the new live tournament poker brands, the PokerStars Championship was the one to feature larger prize pools, and therefore it attracted a bit more attention and evoked greater excitement.
Some of the world’s most popular poker pros were frequent participants in PokerStars Championship’s highest buy-in tournaments over the year and some of them won quite a lot from those. Here is a quick look at those five fortunate ones who cashed the most from PokerStars’ Championship series.
Bryn Kenney – $4,507,305
Kenney is one of the big names of live tournament poker with his live poker bankroll of over $20.4 million and multiple titles. And in 2017, the player proved true to his reputation and cashed more than $4.5 million in PokerStars Championship events only.
He was off to a particularly good start of the year in the Bahamas, where he finished in the money in six tournaments during the inaugural PokerStars Championship Bahamas and won two of the events – the $50,000 and the $25,700 high rollers.
During the Monaco stop of the tournament series, the player took down the €100,000 Super High Roller for a payout of €1,784,500. He also cashed in Panama and Barcelona.
Daniel Dvoress – $3,007,629
The greater portion of the Canadian’s live tournament earnings this year came from PokerStars Championship tournaments. He cashed in the Bahamas, Panama, Macau, Monaco, and the Czech Republic.
It was namely in 2017 and at a Championship festival that the player scooped his largest live cash of the year and of his career as a whole. The Canadian poker pro finished third in the Monte Carlo €100,000 Super High Roller, good for €832,800.
He also finished fourth in the Bahamas $100,000 Super High Roller for $576,300 and second in the Panama $50,000 Super High Roller.
Steve O’Dwyer – $2,482,748
Without doubt, O’Dwyer is among the best high roller players in the world. He was quite active on the high roller scene in 2017 and we were lucky to see quite a lot of him during PokerStars Championship high rollers.
The player cashed in the Bahamas, Panama, Macau, Monaco, Barcelona, and Prague. He made his best result in Macau, where he beat the field of the HK$400,000 Super High Roller for HK$8,460,830 (approximately $1,088,800). He won one more PokerStars Championship tournament this year, the Panama $10,300 High Roller, good for a payout of $240,451.
Stephen Chidwick – $2,048,058
England’s second most profitable player of all time was also among the players to win the most from PokerStars’ new live tournament series. Chidwick cashed in the Bahamas, Panama, Barcelona, and Prague to collect over $2 million for his efforts.
It can be said that of all four spots, Barcelona was his luckiest as he won a €25,500 tournament and finished third in another event with the same buy-in fee. The player collected €690,400 and €220,700, respectively.
Nick Petrangelo – $1,921,956
The US poker pro had in-the-money finishes in the Bahamas, Macau, Monaco, and Barcelona. During the PokerStars Championship Bahamas festival, the player finished runner-up to Lucas Greenwood in the $25,750 High Roller for a total of $740,032. The payout was actually his largest within the series as well as the largest one to collect this year.
It can be said that he performed quite well in Macau, where he made three final table finishes and collected three six-figure payouts, including the amount of $339,565 for his runner-up finish in the HK$206,000 No-Limit Hold’em.
