German poker pro Fedor Holz joined the elite company of WPT Alpha8 champions last night after he bested the field of the WPT Alpha8 Las Vegas. He collected the amount of $1,589,219, his best live cash so far, as well as an Aurae Solid Gold MasterCard pre-loaded with $10,000 and a Hublot Oceanographic 4000 watch.
The WPT Alpha8 Las Vegas event with a $100,000 buy-in took place at the Bellagio Resort & Casino on December 18-20. It attracted a field of 45 of the world’s best high rollers who generated an overall prize pool of $4,414,500. The top 7 finishers received a share of the money, with the lowest payout worth $176,580.
Day 3 of the $100,000 buy-in tournament saw eight players returning to play down to a champion. The event’s final table featured prominent poker pros such as Daniel Negreanu, Nick Petrangelo, Sean Winter, etc. Eight-handed play started with Holz holding the majority of chips. In fact, the player managed to maintain his chip lead throughout the final table, despite the tough competition he was facing.
It took four and half hours and 106 hands of play for the winner to be determined. And the young German had to face Nick Petrangelo heads-up. The two-handed match started with Holz holding two times more chips than his opponent.
The German poker pro needed about an hour to defeat Petrangelo. Hand #106 turned out to be the last one for the evening and the event as a whole. Petrangelo moved all in and his opponent called. The American poker pro tabled [Ad][Qs] and Holz showed [5s][5c]. The board ran out [Jc][3s][2d][4c][9s], securing the German with the title and the first-place prize. As for Petrangelo, he collected a consolation prize of $1,015,335 for his runner-up finish.
Daniel Negreanu finished 3rd in the event for a payout of $640,103. Sean Winter scooped $441,450 for his 4th place. Ankush Mandavia took 5th place for $309,015. Kathy Lehne received $242,798 of the prize pool for finishing 6th. Keith Tilston took home $176,580 for his 7th place in the tournament.
Including last night’s victory, Holz’s live tournament earnings now amount to a little more than $3.8 million. It is also interesting to note that the player began gathering extreme popularity last year when he won the 2014 World Championship of Online Poker for more than $1.3 million.
What is more, it was announced recently that Holz will be among the notables that will take part in the WPT National Philippines $200,000 Triton SHR Series – Cali Cup, the highest buy-in event in the WPT history. A total of 21 players have been confirmed for the tournament, including Phil Ivey, Paul Phua, Sam Trickett, and Vivek Rajkumar. The $200,000 Super High Roller will take place on January 3-4 at Solaire Resort & Casino.
