Justin Bonomo bests Daniel Negreanu to win Super High Roller Bowl for $5M

Hosted at the Aria Casino, the Super High Roller Bowl (SHRB) has quickly established itself as one of the events all top pros want to win. With a $300,000 price tag on each seat and a field of world class talent to get through in order to take home the $5 million top prize, buying into this event would be a daunting prospect for most. For the two men who eventually reached heads up play however, it was just another day at the office.

Seating draw spices things up

The field size for this year’s event reached 48, with a prize pool of $14.4 million being generated along the way. The event brought some interesting stories with it, asDaniel Negreanu found himself seated next to his fiercest critic Doug Polk on day 1. Polk took the opportunity to have a bit of fun and stoke that fire by wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the sarcastic slogan “more rake is better”.

Final table

It was Negreanu who would have the last laugh however – or at least, the second to last, as he carried a big stack all the way to the final table where he, Mikita Badziakouski and winner of SHRB China Justin Bonomo all carried around 4 million chips into the final day of play. A day which began with the look of a three-horse race stayed that way for the most part, although Badziakouski eventually faded, falling in 4th place. High Roller regular Jason Koon managed to grind his stack to a 3rd place finish, leaving the illustrious duo of Bonomo and Negreanu to battle it out.

Bonomo outlasts Negreanu

Despite the best efforts of Canadian superstar, all-time money list leader and rake advocate Daniel Negreanu, it was Bonomo who was able to power his way to victory, picking up $5 million for winning this huge title. He also moved up to 3rd on the all-time money list, staking his claim as one of best poker players in the world and hitting serious form just in time for the World Series of Poker.

As for Negreanu, he will no doubt reflect happily on an event in which he proved many of his doubters wrong and extended his lead on the all-time money list, despite missing out on the win.

With many of the older players struggling against the young online generation, Negreanu and Seidel in particular, continue to show their relevance in the poker world of today. He will now surely head across to the Rio for the World Series feeling buoyed by this result.

Daniel @RealKidPoker Negreanu has outs, but @JustinBonomo has top set.
$5 million and the #SHRBowl title hangs in the balance!
▶ https://t.co/PvbqIV8aRS pic.twitter.com/lo2fosq7g6

— PokerGO (@PokerGO) May 31, 2018

The final payouts are as follows:

1st – Justin Bonomo – $5,000,000
2nd – Daniel Negreanu – $3,000,000
3rd – Jason Koon – $2,100,000
4th – Mikita Badziakouski – $1,600,000
5th – Christoph Vogelsang – $1,200,000
6th – Nick Petrangelo – $900,000
7th – Stephen Chidwick – $600,000
8th – Seth Davies – $90,000