This week’s poker news kicks off with a massive win for one of the best in the game and ends with a poker breakthrough in Texas. Here’s a roundup of this week’s poker headlines:
Bonomo Has Career Day At Super High Roller Bowl China
Justin Bonomo has had some huge tournaments throughout his career but at the Super High Roller Bowl in China, he took things to another level. While he’s won over a million dollars three times in his career, his new biggest payday for one tournament is the $4,823,077 in prize money he collected in Macau. The American beat out Finland’s Patrik Antonius, who settled for $3,153,551. The German duo of Rainer Kempe and Dominik Nitsche were next with $2,040,533 and $1,669,527, respectively, while American Bryn Kenney rounded out the top five with $1,484,024.
Bonomo is now sixth on the all-time money list with over $25 million in career live earnings. Ranking first on the list is Canada’s Daniel Negreanu with over $36.5 million. Bonomo didn’t stop there as he inched closer a few days later, winning over $51,000 at another tournament in Macau.
Negreanu, Hellmuth Join Super High Roller Bowl Las Vegas
Speaking of Negreanu, the Canadian will be playing in the 2018 Super High Roller Bowl in Las Vegas at the ARIA from May 27 to 30. A total of 61 players put up a $30,000 non-refundable deposit just to get into the lottery for this event, which has a buy-in for $300,000. There were only 48 seats available.
Negreanu, who also co-hosted the lottery, will be there along with Phil Hellmuth, 2015 winner Brian Rast and defending champion Christoph Vogelsang. There will be 11 players who will be in the Super High Roller Bowl for the first time. There were still 18 spots left after the 30 names were called. Those 18 players will get in via assignment from ARIA while there will be two seats up for grabs at a $10,000 satellite tournament on May 26. The 30 players who are in are now on the hook for the additional $270,000 prior to the tournament starting.
WPT DeepStacks Announces Visit To Houston
The World Poker Tour DeepStacks has announced that it’ll head to Houston later this year. Specifically, it will be at the FreeRolls Poker Club for a tournament from September 21 to 25. This event will have a buy-in of $1,000 and will be the first non-charity poker event to be played in Texas. That might be a bit of a surprise to some as the game is called “Texas” Hold’em but the legality of poker in the state has been up for debate for a while now.
The WPT DeepStacks has stated that it is complying with all local and state laws to be able to host this tournament, although some are still skeptical. Players will have to pay a membership fee to play but FreeRolls won’t take any money from any of the games. It is going to be very interesting to monitor the run-up to this event to see whether regulators will step in or whether the DeepStacks will indeed be a groundbreaking event.