This week’s poker news is all about the winners. Three players captured three pretty big purses. Let’s take a look back and see who won what this pas week.
Maxim Sekretarev Wins 2021 World Poker Tour Russia Main Event
Oh, to be 19 years old and on top of the world.
19-year-old Russian native Maxim Sekretarev is pretty much there as he was the last player left standing during the 2021 WPT Russia $3,229 USD buy-in no-limit hold’em main event. He defeated a field of 251 other entries in order to get his name inscribed onto the Mike Sexton World Poker Tour Champions Cup.
The win got him $160,694 for his first-place finish and was by far the largest score of his incredibly young career. But that wasn’t all that he earned, walking away with 612 Card Player Player of the Year points as well. It was his first POY qualified finish this year, moving him straight into 26th place in the 2021 POY standings.
Andrey Volkov finished as the runner up in this event, claiming 510 POY points along with a $107,135 prize. Then Ravil Khamatgareev rounded out the top three with 408 POY points and $78,232 in earnings.
Pascal Lefrancois Wins MILLIONS Online Super High Roller
Pascal Lefrancois was able to collect a huge payday after finishing in first place during the $25,500 buy-in Super High Roller event that kicked off on March 3rd. He had defeated a field of 70 other players in order to claim the top prize of $525,089.
He was one of 11 players who had made it into the second day of the event, before those 11 were slowly whittled down to seven entering the final table. Goergi Sandev and Matthias Eibinger were the first two eliminated with Daniel Dvoress and Barry Hutter soon following. The German superstar Ole Schemion was also knocked out early on in the final table.
At the end of it all, Ami Barer was the only one left standing with Lefrancois, with neither party agreeing to a deal. The two went back and forth before Lefrancois had won and sent Barer down to second place. However, he still had a very nice cash out from his placement, taking home $327,468 despite losing to a fellow Canadian.
Endrit Geci Wins 2021 partypoker MILLIONS Online Main Event
Sticking with the big winners, Endrit Geci did will at the MILLIONS as he ended up winning the Online $5,300 buy-in no-limit hold’em main event. The event reeled in a whopping 1,084 total entries, which pushed the prize pool way past the $5 million guarantee (to a final $5,420,000). That amount was split among the top 160 finishers.
Geci obviously took home the biggest chunk of that pool for his first-place finish, winning $774,838. That score is now the largest of his career, with his previous record being a $223,978 score that he picked up during the 2020 World Series of Poker Online $1,000 buy-in event which saw him finish in second place.
Making this win even more impressive was the fact that he had defeated a star-studded field. Knocking down 2020 WSOP Online High Roller Champion Christian Rudolph, bracelet winner Daniel Dvoress and Polish tournament star Dzmitry Ubranovich.