The Germans continue to dominate the Super High Roller competitions with Nicklas Heinecker taking down the GuangDong Ltd Asia Millions for over $4 million; Igor Kurganov also makes the final table.
With the Canadians and Americans dominating the World Series of Poker (WSOP) some quarters of the poker community may be asking, “Where art thou Europeans?”
Just take a peek into the Far East and you will have your question answered, because whilst the Americas are showing the world who’s the Daddy of the greatest poker competition on earth, the Germans are once again proving themselves to be the greatest at winning the highest buy-in events in the world.
Niklas Heinecker has joined the likes of Max Altergott, Tobias Reinkemeier, Philipp Gruissem, Igor Kurganov and Fabian Quoss in the German poker hierarchy after taking down the GuangDong Ltd Asia Millions for HK$34,600,000. That’s $4,464,516, making it the largest prize ever handed to anyone outside of the WSOP in Las Vegas.
The event, which took place at PokerStars LIVE at the City of Dreams in Macau, was a HK$1,000,000 ($130,000) buy-in, where each player was entitled to two rebuys; an act that was carried out an incredible 54-times to create a total prize pool of $15,403,226.
What is interesting about these Super High Roller competitions is the increase in player numbers as more and more professional poker players are putting packages together to take a shot at a huge pay out. Pratyush Budigga the current case in point with an eighth place finish good for HK$6,000,000 ($723,000).
“This is easily the greatest day of my poker career” Heinecker told PokerNews after his win.
It was a fast paced final table with the average stack only 15BB deep. The heads-up action fell between Heinecker and the Aussie Jeff Rossiter, who had come close to winning a High Roller event many times, but had not yet ended up with the top prize. History would repeat itself after just a few hands when the Germans [Ah ][9h] out-paced the Australians [Qd] [Ts] on a board of [Kh] [5d] [4c] [3d] [Js], leaving Rossiter with yet another near miss; except this one came with the added sweetener of $3,161,290 in prize money.
Main Event Payouts
1. Niklas Heinecker – $4,464,516
2. Jeff Rossiter – $3,161,290
3. Sorel Mizzi – $2,077,419
4. Zheng Tang – $1,616,129
5. Isaac Haxton – $1,316,129
6. Igor Kurganov – $1,070,967
7. Anson Tsang – $922,580
8. Pratyush Budigga – $774,193
