In a recent podcast with Steffen Sontheimer, Joe Ingram asked the poker pro what a player needs to possess in order to win one high roller tournament after another. Sontheimer jokingly said that a German passport will do the magic.
And given the terrific performance of an elite group of German poker professionals over the past several years, it has really started to look as if their origin might have something to do with their success. Stripping all humor of what these players have accomplished recently, it should be said that their efforts are establishing Germany as something of a poker super power.
It can be said, and very, very few would disagree, that 2016 was the year of Fedor Holz, who collected more than $16.4 million by taking down most of the highest buy-in tournaments to have taken place in the twelve months to December 31, 2016. And if Sontheimer keeps the pace he had assumed, 2017 may well become his year. One thing is for sure, the past several months have been the most successful in the player’s career as a live tournament player.
The player has scooped over $5.7 million in live tournament earnings since the beginning of the year, mostly by entering (and quite often winning) high roller tournaments to have taken place around the globe. In comparison, Sontheimer cashed a little less than $500,000 last year and several thousand dollars in 2015.
It was actually in 2015 when the German, who now resides in Brighton, UK, made his first foray into live tournament poker. The player played online cash games prior to that and was quite proficient in those.
While Sontheimer may have been an unfamiliar face to many in the live poker world until his recent accomplishments, others were confident that it would not take long before he starts bearing the fruit of his skills. Back in January, Holz took to Twitter to share his prediction that 2017 would be “the breakout year” of Sontheimer. The German went on to say that his fellow countryman was actually the “best player in the game right now”. These words coming from a player like Holz were certainly a praise of huge magnitude.
Sontheimer’s Accomplishments in 2017
It is now time to look at what the player in question has done so far in 2017. Sontheimer has cashed in 19 events this year and many of them have been high rollers. Most importantly, the player has taken down four such tournaments so far, two of which within four days.
Aria Resort & Casino hosted its first Poker Masters high roller festival, which featured five tournaments on its schedule, in September. Sontheimer topped the fields of two of the events and finished in-the-money in two more. Thus, he became the player to cash the most from the festival, which secured him with the very special Poker Masters title and the accompanying Purple Jacket.
Sontheimer won a $50,000 buy-in tournament for $900,000 as part of the inaugural Poker Masters and a $100,000 one for his career’s largest cash of $1,512,000.
In July, the player won two high rollers – one at the Bellagio – a $25,000 No-Limit Hold’em that secured him with a $111,648 payout, and the other at Austria’s Casino Velden – a €25,200 Super High Roller as part of the Poker EM 2017 festival. He locked the amount of €430,000 from that second event.
In May, the German poker pro scored another seven-figure payout, although he missed on the title. He finished runner-up to Christian Christner, another representative of Germany’s group of highly successful players, in a $100,000 Super High Roller, held at Aria Resort & Casino. Sontheimer collected $1,223,264 for his second-place finish.
