The fourth event in the inaugural Poker Masters series concluded over the weekend, with US pro Brandon Adams emerging the winner of the $819,000 main prize after a tough heads up against Doug Polk, whose second placing was worth $468,000.
InfoPowa readers will recall that the Poker Masters format is based on four $50,000 buy-in high roller events and a final $100,000 buy-in freeze-out competition, with the player who accumulates the biggest cash total across all five events the ultimate winner of the inaugural Poker Masters Blazer.
39 top players anted up the hefty buy-in for the fourth of the $50,000 contests; by the time the heads up was reached Polk had the chip lead, but Adams staged a major fightback to finally claim the biggest cash of his career to date, a boost for his previous earnings total of just short of $2 million.
However, with just the $100,000 buy-in contest remaining to be played Monday, Adams still trails the current leaders in the series, with German pro Steffen Sontheimer at the top of the leader board on $1,221,000 after making three of the final tables in the series. Second on the 26-player list is Bryn Kenney, who has amassed $1.085 million, and at third is Nick Schulman on $918,000.
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Watching these results carefully will be Danial Negreanu, who has reportedly placed even-money side bets on his winning the Poker Masters with twenty players, issuing his own $50,000 per player prop bet over Twitter.
If he does not win the Poker Masters – and at present that seems a likely misfortune, because he is 21st on the leader board with only $102,000 to his credit – Negreanu is faced with honouring his bets with various players.
His way out may be if Christoph Vogelsang or David Peters win; neither have taken his bet and the conditions of the wager are that if the winner is not among those who accepted Negreanu’s challenge, the deal is off.
On the other hand, should he achieve a major come-back in the last competition and top the final leader board, Negreanu stands to collect over a million dollars from those who have wagered against his success.
Monday’s big game offers the chance of a large enough cash for most of those on the leader board to radically improve their positions, and will ultimately determine the first wearer of that purple blazer.