The Bellagio Poker Room, one of the hottest poker spots on the Las Vegas Strip, is currently playing host to this year’s WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic. The festival has long been one of the most popular tournament poker events to be taking place within WPT’s schedule, and this year presents no exception to what has become a general rule.
A number of tournaments on the schedule of this year’s edition of the festival have already been completed, and the $100,000 Super High Roller was the one to crown a victor mere hours ago. Dan Smith, a vivid member of global poker’s elite, bested the tournament’s field to collect the amount of $1,404,000 for his performance that included battling against some of the world’s best high roller pros.
The tournament drew 39 participants who generated a prize pool of $3.9 million. There were payouts for the top six finishers, with min-cashes starting from $234,000. Bryn Kenney was the first to leave the event with a payout, after falling in sixth place on Thursday night. Following his elimination, the five remaining players bagged it for that day and were instructed to return at the host venue on Friday when they played down to a winner.
The five finalists were led by Isaac Haxton, who entered the final day of play with a total of 1.81 million in chips. Daniel Negreanu trailed behind with the second largest stack of 1.472 million. Smith, Germany’s Stefan Schillhabel, and Spain’s Sergio Aido were the other three players left to contend for the title and the hefty first-place payout.
Aido was the first to go on Friday, and was followed by Haxton, who apparently had lost his momentum from Thursday. The two players received $312,000 and $390,000, respectively.
Three-handed play was packed with action, and according to Negreanu, who kept tweeting throughout the day, Schillhabel and Smith often engaged in massive pot confrontations. Smith prevailed over his German opponent to enter heads-up against Negreanu. Schillhabel thus headed to the payout desk to collect his third-place payout of $624,000.
The eventual winner held a significant chip advantage over his Canadian colleague, and it did not take long before the name of the winner became clear. As Negreanu revealed on Twitter, the final hand of the evening saw his [Q][10] fall to Smith’s [A][K]. The popular Canadian poker pro scooped a payout of $936,000 for his deep run into the tournament.
Facts and Figures about the Super High Roller’s Finalists
Negreanu’s runner-up finish in the Super High Roller and his payout of nearly $1 million cemented his top position in the all-time money list. The player now has more than $35 million in live tournament earnings.
As for the winner, last night’s payout brought his live tournament earnings to over $19 million. The player has cashed in a number of live tournament earnings over the course of his career. He scooped his largest live cash last year, when he finished runner-up to Fedor Holz in the WSOP $111,111 High Roller for ONE DROP. Smith received the amount of $3,078,974 for his efforts.
