We are only halfway through 2017 and German poker pro Koray Aldemir can already say that he has had his best year in poker. The player, now residing in Vienna, Austria, has added more than $2.88 million in live tournament winnings over the past six months.
Aldemir has made a statement that he should be considered one of the finest specimens of poker’s younger generation and he has been working very hard to maintain that reputation.
Although poker people from all around the world are mostly focused on the ongoing WSOP festival, the host venue Rio All-Suit Hotel & Casino is not the only place in Las Vegas where quality poker action is taking place. Aria Resort & Casino has turned into a favorite gathering place to players who fancy high roller tournament action with its regular $25,000 buy-in tournaments.
Aldemir not only participated in the latest such tournaments, held late last week, but he also won one of them and finished runner-up in the other. The player thus collected $592,240 for his performance.
The first such tournament was held on Friday, June 16. It saw a total of 35 entries pay the $25,000 buy-in to generate a prize pool of $840,000. The top 5 places got a payout. Aldemir was very close to winning the event, but eventually had to settle for the runner-up finish and the amount of $272,080 in prize money. David Peters, another Aria High Roller regular, won the tournament for a first-place prize of $324,320.
Lawrence Greenberg took third place in the tournament for $117,600. Ian O’Hara collected $75,600 for his fourth-place finish. Tom Marchese finished fifth in the high roller tournament, good for $50,400.
Aldemir and fellow poker players returned to Aria’s poker tables on the very next day. The Saturday $25,000 buy-in tournament saw a field of 29 entries and a prize pool of $696,000. It was once again the top 5 players who left with a payout. Aldermir emerged as the winner in that one, scooping yet another six-figure payout this year. His prize from the Aria High Roller totaled $320,160.
Sergi Reixach Lloveras was Aldemir’s heads-up opponent. The player received a $174,000 share of the prize pool. Stephen Chidwick, Ivan Luca, and Rainer Kempe were the other three players to scoop a payout from the tournament, taking home $97,440, $62,640, and $41,760, respectively.
As mentioned above, Aldemir has had quite a year, making several final tables and collecting six- and even seven-figure prizes. In February, the player took down the Triton Super High Roller Series HK$100,000 Main Event for HK$10,032,869 (almost $1.3 million).
However, that payout was not his career biggest. Last summer, Aldemir finished third in the 2016 WSOP $111,111 High Roller for ONE DROP, collecting the amount of $2,154,265 for his deep run into the major event.
