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German online specialist Leon Sturm has taken down the WSOP $50k 8-handed title ahead of a stacked field to bag a gold bracelet and his second $1.5million payday of the month...
With 124 entries the prizepool was a monster $5,921,000 with 19 players set to cash for a minimum $81,983 and it brought out the biggest and best of the world’s highstakes pros ... and as we will see, amateurs too.
Persona non grata everywhere it seems except the WSOP, poker cheat Jake Schindler fired two bullets but couldn’t make the money, while Daniel Negreanu did the same with the same result, his second chance ending...
Negreanu: A♣ Q♣
Kornuth: Q♦ Qâ™
“I was hoping he'd have jacks!” said into the camera as he selfied for his vlog...
Flop: 3â™ 6â™ 10â™
Turn: 4♣
River: 3♣
“Boom! Dead. GG guys,” Negreanu said as he departed.
Things would eventually go the same way for Kornuth, falling on the money bubble to Alex Foxen when he couldn’t find a fold to Foxen’s final river bet...
Kornuth: A♥ A♣
Foxen: K♦ 2♦
Flop: 6♥ K♠2♣
Turn: 7â™
River: J♣
That meant both Foxens were in the money, Alex and Kristen joined by the likes of Justin Bonomo, Dan Smith, and Talal Shakerchi, but by the end of day two there were just five players remaining.
Two of them, Alex Foxen and Seth Davies, belong to the world of live tournament crushers, another two, Jans Arends and Leon Sturm, to the online highstakes MTT arena, and last but far from least, poker-loving amateur, Bill Klein, a mainstay of highstakes poker in the USA.
The live crushers would fall first, Davies to a river cooler and then Foxen to Sturm’s flopped two pair, a $½million payday softening the blow somewhat.
Arends, known online as Graftekkel, fell to Sturm in similar fashion, top pair weaker kicker ending his hopes of live gold, leaving Sturm to face Klein heads up.
A quick reversal of the chip stacks was followed by the denouement, Klein jamming the turn but Sturm finding the call to claim WSOP gold...
Klein: 8♥ 5♦
Sturm: Q♣ J♦
Flop: J♠8♣ 3s
Turn: 6♦
River: 2♥
Final results
| 1 | Leon Sturm | $1,546,024 |
| 2 | Bill Klein | $955,513 |
| 3 | Jans Arends | $694,019 |
| 4 | Alex Foxen | $512,824 |
| 5 | Seth Davies | $385,617 |
| 6 | Justin Bonomo | $295,169 |
| 7 | Sam Soverel | $230,066 |
| 8 | Sung Joo Hyun | $182,662 |
Sturm, who had entered via a $5k sattie, had just bagged his second monster payday of the month to go with his maiden WSOP gold bracelet, having scooped the $10k buy-in GGPoker Super MILLION$ event for $1,518,400.
“It does feel amazing,” Sturm told PokerNews after his win. “The bracelet is something special; it means more than just a trophy, I guess. Before, I was thinking that trophies and bracelets don’t mean much to me. But I think a bracelet is special, so that’s pretty cool. The competition was really tough, so that makes it better.”
He said of Arends: “We haven’t really met before, but we play tons online,” and revealed the live crushers “... like Foxen, Davies, and all these people...,” make up for their relative lack of experience.
“I’d say in terms of their skill, because they don’t play that much online and don’t get that much hands in, I think I can do quite well against them, and maybe I’m even better theoretically.”
“But it’s just their presence and their focus, and how they prepare for everything is just so insanely sick in a way that you have to have so much respect for them.”
