With the WSOP’s new fall dates leaving the summer schedule open, tournament series all across the world are able to hold big events. And we’re seeing that play out, with big winners popping up at casinos not just in Las Vegas, but at card rooms from Australia to Texas. Read more below about some notable victories that caught our attention at CardsChat News for the week ending Sunday, June 6, 2021:
Christian Rudolph
WPT Online Series Main Event
Partypoker
$487,443
Rudolph made a heads-up deal with Brazilian pro Fabiano Kovalski to chop the World Poker Tour’s $3,200 buy-in, $3 million guaranteed tournament, before playing it down to a winner. As one of three Germans at the final table, he doesn’t get the same notoriety as fellow countrymen Fedor Holz and Steffen Sontheimer, but perhaps the poker world should take notice. Rudolph now has over $4 million in live tournament cashes and won a WSOP Online Bracelet Series event last summer in the $25K Poker Players Championship No-Limit Hold’em for $1.8 million and his first bracelet in 33 World Series of Poker cashes. This week’s WPT score marked is second major online poker title in 10 months.
Anatoly Filatov
Super Millions
GGPoker
$325,957
Filatov took on 148 other players in the latest Super Millions. The highly-rated pro has taken part in the weekly $10,300 high roller 32 times as a member of GGPoker’s Team Russia. Tuesday night’s victory was Filatov’s third final table appearance, and it couldn’t have gone any better. Despite pressure from the likes of Isaac Haxton, the man known online as NL_Profit lived up to his moniker and led from start to finish. Heads-up, he needed just three hands to dispatch with Bruno Volkmann and claim his first Super Millions title.
Jonathan Tamayo
Wynn Summer Classic
No-Limit Hold’em
Las Vegas
$237,935
Tamayo got his WSOP-free Vegas summer off to a great start on Memorial Day by taking down the Wynn’s $1,100 NLH event, which came with a $1 million guarantee. With 1,720 entries over three starting days, the tournament easily crushed the guarantee, generating a $1.68 million prize pool. Tamayo, who’s perhaps best known for his 21st place finish in the 2009 WSOP Main Event (for $353K), logged the second-biggest payday of his career, which has now tallied more than $1.9 million in tournament winnings.
Viet Vo
Prime Social Summer Series
Main Event
Houston
$229,200
In Texas, Houston’s Prime Social Club held a Summer Series consisting of 16 events with more than $1.8 million in guarantees from May 20 – June 6. The $1,100 main event came with a $1 million guarantee and drew 1,459 entries. With nearly $2.8 million in all-time tourney winnings, Vo, from the Houston suburb of Pearland, is 24th on the all-time tournament winners list from Texas. Vo has two WSOP Circuit rings, and is on something of a tear, booking a third place finish in April at the WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown in Hollywood, Florida, for just under $600K.
Jake Daniels
US Poker Open No-Limit Hold’em
PokerGO Studio
Las Vegas
$218,500
Jake Daniels arrived at the PokerGO Studio Thursday having never before entered a US Poker Open event. He left the made-for-webcasting card room a day later a USPO champion and $218,500 richer. The Texas native picked up the second largest score of his poker career while beating out 94 other players, many of whom are among the best in the game. Daniels persevered at the final table and grinded out a win. He fell victim to a huge bluff by Dan Shak with five players remaining, and dropped back to one of the small stacks. But he battled back and would eventually get the last laugh on Shak, whom he defeated heads-up for the title.
Will Davies
WPTDeepStacks Gold Coast Main Event
The Star Gold Coast, Australia
AU$252,729
($196, 106)
The inaugural WPTDeepStacks at the Star Gold Coast set a record for any WPT event at the Australian Gold Coast casino. The AU$1,500 (US$1,164) main event attracted 1,113 players. Davies had to outlast the likes of Aussie poker legend Joe Hachem, and stage a momentous comeback at the final table before beating Mike Maddocks heads-up on Monday night. Davies cut his teeth on the UK poker circuit, and, among a bevy of deep runs, he has a GUKPT title to his name. Following a move to Australia, where he is better known for serving as tournament director at The Poker Palace in Sydney, Davies has cashed in seven live events since 2019. His latest performance netted him his maiden WPTDeepStacks title, a place in history, and his biggest payday to date.
