The Single-Day $50,000 High Roller, yet another exciting event on the schedule of this year’s PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, has just been completed. Irish poker player Steve O’Dwyer won the tournament to collect the tournament trophy and the amount of $945,495 in prize money.
The Single-Day $50,000 High Roller draw a field of 80 entries, of whom 58 unique ones. They created a prize pool of $4 million and it was distributed to the top 11 finishers. Lowest payouts amounted to $96,500.
Unsurprisingly, the tournament attracted some of the world’s best high rollers, with WPT National Philippines $200,000 Triton Super High Roller champion Fedor Holz, Bryn Kenney, who has just won the 2016 PCA $100,000 Super High Roller, and Dan Colman, who topped the field of the 2014 WSOP The BIG ONE for ONE DROP, being only few of those. They all, however, seem to have been short of luck and could not hold up against O’Dwyer.
It took more than 15 hours and 23 levels of play before the name of the champion was announced. The money bubble bust in Level 16 and it was Paul Volpe who turned to be the event’s bubble boy. The official nine-handed final table was reached a level later. Action started with Argentinian Ivan Luca as the chip leader. The player had a total of 2,740,000 in chips. He was followed by Bryn Kenney with 945,000 and Isaac Haxton with 785,000.
Nick Petrangelo was the first to leave. He was eliminated in 9th place by Haxton to collect a payout of $110,020. Paul Newey was the next to go. He could not make it against Luca in Level 17 and scooped $144,760 of the prize pool for finishing 8th in the tournament.
Shortly after, Luca eliminated Kenney. The 2016 PCA $100,000 Super High Roller champion added $185,280 to his poker bankroll for his 7th place. Daniel Dvoress was the next to fall victim to the young Argentine. His 6th place in the tournament secured him with a payout of $235,460.
Multiple WSOP gold bracelet winner Erik Seidel was yet another player to be eliminated by Luca. Seidel took home the amount of $301,080 for his fifth-place finish. At that point, the Argentinian was in possession of more than 50% of all chips in play.
It took some time before another player left the final table. In Level 21, Haxton was eliminated in 4th place by Connor Drinan to collect $380,200. Half an hour later, Luca fell victim to O’Dwyer to bust in 3rd place and receive $494,080 for his efforts.
The two heads-up opponents – Drinan and O’Dwyer – took a short break to discuss a deal. One was indeed reached and the two players agreed that O’Dwyer would take home $914,811, Drinan would collect $870,625, and the eventual winner would bag the remaining $30,684 and the trophy.
Heads-up match started with O’Dwyer holding 4,640,000 in chips against his opponent’s 3,360,000. And it did not take long before the name of the champion was clear. The last hand occurred only half an hour after the beginning of heads-up play. O’Dwyer moved all in and Drinan called after giving it some thought. The first tabled [Ad][3d] against the latter’s [Qs][Th]. The board ran out [3h][4s][6s][Ah][5s], thus securing the Irishman with two pair and another PCA high roller title. Last year, the player took down the PCA $100,000 Super High Roller for $1,872,580.
