There were a number of big poker tournaments happening this past week in different parts of the world. We’ll focus this week’s headlines on three big winners, including a Dutch celebrity who surprised the crowd and emerged as the champ at the 2018 Master Classics event:
Dutch Celebrity TV Host Wins Master Classics Of Poker Main Event
Alberto Stegeman has been an award-winning Dutch journalist and TV show host for many years. While he’s a well-known personality in the Netherlands, he’ll now be known in many more circles after winning the Master Classics championship in Amsterdam.
He won just over 240,000 euros, clearly the largest prize of his tournament poker career. He now joins a group of other famous local Dutch celebrities and poker players to win this event, like Noah Boeken, Ruben Visser and David Boyaciyan.
Kilian Kramer was the runner-up and won just over 160,000 euros. Rounding out the top five were Teun Mulder, who placed third and earned just over 111,000 euros, Joey Vittali, who was fourth and won 80,216, and Henri Piironen, who finished fifth and collected 59,842.
The Master Classics is one of the longest-running events on the poker circuit as 2018 marked the 27th consecutive running of the tournament.
Wang Wins WSOPC Sydney Opening Event
A whopping 1,444 participants entered the WSOP International Circuit Opening Event in Sydney but only one survived them all. When all the action had ended, Jun Wang was crowned the champion, netting just over $82,000 US.
Wang was in control down the stretch of this event as he actually entered the final table as the chip leader. This was his first final table and he didn’t encounter too many hurdles, although he did have a protracted heads-up game with Malcom Trayner, who eventually placed second.
Trayner ended up with just over $51,000 in winnings. Zhi Ma was third and collected $37,400.
Arnaud Wins PokerStars Event In Korea
The PokerStars LIVE Asia Jeju Red Dragon brought high-stakes poker action to Korea and one skilled player survived the field to take home a large prize. The Super High Roller event created a prize pool of nearly $2.23 million – a record for the largest PokerStars prize pool in Korea – and Romain Arnaud took home a big chunk of that. He ended up with $668,000 for finishing first after navigating his way through a field of 30 players and 14 re-entries.
Before this big win, Arnaud had only won money in a professional poker tournament once. That was when he collected just over $200,000 for a ninth-place result at the 2016 Triton Poker Super High Roller Series in Paranaque City, Philippines. He’s mostly stuck to high-stakes cash games.
Rui Cao was the runner-up at this event and won just over $619,000. Rounding out the top five were Michael Soyza, who was third and won $335,700, Ivan Seng Yee Leow, who placed fourth and collected $257,387, and Wai Kin Yong, who was fifth and won $201,434.