With the COVID-19 pandemic seemingly easing in many parts of the world, poker isn’t just showing signs of life in the US and Europe, it’s thriving — both online and at live tables — in casinos everywhere from Las Vegas to London. Need proof? Look no further than the PokerGo studio located at Las Vegas’ Aria Casino where the World Poker Tour played three final tables that were all postponed from the 2019-2020 season.
A little further north on the Strip, Dylan Wilkerson drew our eye after taking down a DeepStack event at the Venetian this week, while Taylor Howard proved to be anything but dead wood, winning the South Dakota State State Poker Championship. Online, saw winners score big on GG Poker and on Partypoker, while Sridhar Sangannagari scooped the Super Tuesday title in New Jersey.
Keep reading for all the details, and to see who else earned recognition as our Big Winners for the week ending Saturday, May 22, 2021:
Michael Addamo
WPT Online Series Super High Roller
Partypoker
$363,661
Addamo is one of the most talented, under-the-radar high rollers in the game, and he proved that once again Thursday on Partypoker. The Australian poker pro took down a $25-thousand buy-in online poker high roller for $363,661 just days after shipping another WPT Online Series event — the High Roller Turbo — for $87,459. At the final table of the Super High Roller, he beat out some difficult competition, including Ali Imsirovic (third place) and Matthias Eibinger (fifth place). Addamo added two more big online poker wins to his impressive resume, which also includes over $8.3 million in live tournament cashes.
Niklas Astedt
Super Millions
GGPoker
$313,907
Astedt is on his way to becoming the top MTT player of 2021 after taking down another tourney on GGPoker. The Swede returned to the winner’s circle on Tuesday after beating 158 players in the latest $10,300 weekly showdown. After winning two big pots with aces to reach the final table third in chips, Lena900 continued to steamroll his way to victory, besting his all-star competition, including Bruno Volkman (8th for $61,587), Elio Fox (5th for $123,772), and Sam Greenwood (2nd for $248,746). Astedt’s victory is the latest in a recent rush of strong results; he won his first Super Millions in April, and it just so happened to be a $25,000 Spring Festival edition of the event. Astedt’s latest victory makes him the sixth player to win two Super Millions titles. And, just for good measure, he’s now the event’s most profitable player with $3.35 million in prize money.
Taylor Howard
MSPT South Dakota State Poker Championship
Silverado-Franklin Casino, Deadwood
$119,165
Proud Iowa Hawkeye fan Taylor Howard, who resides in the small town of Blair, Nebraska, traveled up north to South Dakota for the $1,100 buy-in South Dakota State Poker Championship, and came home Monday with his first six-figure score. The newest Mid-States Poker Tour champion beat out a field of 585 players in Deadwood, South Dakota, a tiny town with just 1,500 residents, and a long poker history. (Deadwood is where the infamous “Dead Man’s Hand” of aces and 8s was created after Wild Bill Hickock was shot and killed while playing poker in August 1876 at Nuttal & Mann’s Saloon.) Howard suffered no such fate (thankfully) while winning his second MSPT title — his first since a 2018 win at Meskwaki Casino in Tama, Iowa ($89,939).
Dylan Wilkerson
DeepStack Extravaganza UltimateStack $150K Guarantee
Venetian, Las Vegas
$48,270
California’s Dylan Wilkerson is among the latest winner’s in the current edition of the Venetian’s DeepStack Extravaganza, taking down a $48,270 winner’s payday on Thursday. Wilkerson topped a 739-entry field that generated a $243,870 prize pool for his latest triumph. The globetrotting tournament player, who has two Circuit wins and a WPT Bay 101 runner-up showing among his many achievements, is closing in on the $3.5 million mark in recorded tournament winnings.
Idan the One
Russian Poker Tour Monster Stack
Opera Casino Minsk, Belarus
$5,290
It may not have been in Israel or Russia, but that didn’t stop players from getting down to business at the Opera Casino, Minsk. Due to regulatory and COVID restrictions, the Israeli Poker Championship, which is organized by the Russian Poker Tour (RPT), is taking place in Belarus. That’s a few dots to connect, but context is important when there are so many moving parts. What’s more, it explains why the aptly named Idan the One had to travel from his native Israel to Belarus to win his first live event. The social media reports don’t tell us how many people anted up in the $250 tournament on Wednesday. However, we do know that, by Thursday, Idan was the champion and that his “collection of trophies” now has an RPT plaque in it.
Sridhar Sangannagari
“sri100k”
NJSCOOP “Super Tuesday” $17,500 Guaranteed
PokerStarsNJ.com
$5,096.13
New Jersey’s online players are currently enjoying a loaded slate of events in PokerStarsNJ’s Spring Championship of Online Poker (NJSCOOP), with Sridhar Sangannagari among the latest winners. Sangannagari claimed top honors in the site’s weekly “Super Tuesday” event on — you guessed it — Tuesday, which also counts as an NJSCOOP triumph for the duration of the series. Sangannagari flopped a flush in the event’s final hand to finish off his last challenger, “Jeebus459,” and he outlasted a 125-entry field to win a $5,096 payday in one of the series’ high-roller events.
Daniel Smyth, Haley Hintze, and Jon Sofen all contributed to this report. Got a big winner we should know about? Let us know with an email to tips@cardschat.com.
