PokerStars Championship Macau highlights: O’Dwyer wins the Super High Roller

Several days ago the inaugural PokerStars Championship Macau made its debut at the PokerStars LIVE Macau room in City of Dreams with a scheduled 11 days of festivities running from March 30th-April 9th. The highly anticipated event saw an influx of some of the world’s leading poker pros, representing both the live and online realms.

With the festival now past its halfway mark, several events have wrapped up including the HK$400K buy-in Super High Roller event where Steve O’Dwyer ousted Fedor Holz at the final showdown. Here is a recap of the festival’s early winners.

Steve O’Dwyer takes charge at the HK$400,000 Super High Roller

Fresh off a High Roller victory at the recently concluded PokerStars Championship Panama, pro Steve O’Dwyer wasted no time ripping up the PokerStars Championship Macau felt to seize the HK$400,000 Super High Roller title.

The three-day heavy weight tournament began with business as usual seeing many pros signed up including the incredible Fedor Holz. In total, there were 88 entries for a juicy prize pool of HK$33,802,560.

After two days of action, John Juanda, Bertrand Grospellier “ElkY”, Jack Salter, Sam Greenwood, Sergio Aido, Mustapha Kanit, Dario Sammartino, Nick Petrangelo, Adrian Attenborough, and Philip Gruissem were all eliminated, while on the flip side, entering the final day as the chip leader was none other than O’Dwyer who was seen carrying around a “mango” as his totem of luck. Trailing him in second position was Holz.

Although both players would end the tournament in the same ranking, getting there had its fair share of hurdles with Qiang Lin and Manig Loeser putting up a challenge for the top spot. With the fall of pros Isaac Haxton, Daniel Nielson, Michael Egan, Stanley Choi, and Dan Smith, the final eight was established with O’Dwyer and Holz in new positions, sitting strangely at the bottom half of the rung.

But in reality, this really didn’t matter because these two players were in a league of their own.

As soon as the final table kicked off, it was all O’Dwyer. He quickly found his groove and grinded up the ranks. He picked up more momentum after railing James Chen with his against and eventually shut the door on Lin. Holz helped out and finished off Kahle Burns to bring the table down to three players with Loeser as the commanding chip leader.

But unfortunately for Loeser, he was up against the crème de la crème and was simply outmatched. He got pummeled by O’Dwyer, was stripped of his leadership, and was eliminated in 3rd place. This set up the heads up round between the two powerhouses, O’Dwyer and Holz. Despite O’Dwyer holding a 4:1 chip advantage a deal was immediately struck and in just four quick hands, O’Dwyer defeated Holz with his outflopping Holz’s .

O’Dwyer earned HK$8,460,830 (US$1,088,636) for his impressive back-to-back victory.

Final Table Results

1 – Steve O’Dwyer: HK$8,974,000*
2 – Fedor Holz: HK$6,236,000*
3 – Manig Loeser: HK$4,124,000
4 – Kahle Burns: HK$3,228,000
5 – Zuo Wang: HK$2,603,000
6 – Qiang Lin: HK$2,028,000
7 – James Chen: HK$1,605,560
8 – Zhao Hongjun: HK$1,251,000

Michael Addamo takes down the HK$82K buy-in NLH Single Re-entry

The Aussies are on the trophy board early with Michael Addamocapturing the HK$82K buy-in No Limit Hold’em Single Re-entry event. The tournament ran for three days with Addamo claiming HK$1,522,855 (US$196,022) in winnings.

Among those who also made the money were Bertrand Grospellier “ElkY”, Jack Salter, Mustapha Kanit. Mikita Badziakouski, Dario Sammartino, and Phanlert Sukonthachartnant.

For pros Roman Korenev and Nick Petrangelo, they faced Addamo at the three-handed round where all agreed on a deal. In the aftermath, each one received over a million in Hong Kong dollars with Addamo awarded the largest chunk for his victory.

Results Final Table

1st – Michael Addamo: HK$1,522,855
2nd – Nick Petrangelo: HK$1,412,949
3rd – Roman Korenev: HK$1,236,696
4th – Phanlert Sukonthachartnant: HK$696,500
5th – Dong Zhao: HK$561,500
6th – Dan Smith: HK$437,500
7th – Dario Sammartino: HK$346,400
8th – Mikita Badziakouski: HK$270,000
9th – Hendrik Latz: HK$204,000

Koen Breed bags the massive PokerStars National Championship 2M Guaranteed

The PokerStars National Championship 2M Guaranteed blew away all expectations with a massive turnout of 818 entries, each one putting up the HK$8,800 buy-in. This of course catapulted the prize pool to a huge HK$6,347,680 (US$817,076) with 159 players getting paid.

While there were many familiar names and faces attending the event such as Celina Lin, Chris Moneymaker, Felipe Ramos, and Maria Ho, flying high at the finish line was Koen Breed from the Netherlands who denied three Chinese nationals at his heels to capture the HK$888,080 (US$114,314) first prize. This is a big feat for Breed who shipped in his largest ever live score.

PokerStars National Championship final table results:
1st – Koen Breed: HK$888,080
2nd – Jianbao Zhong: HK$646,500
3rd – Jie Xu: HK$471,000
4th – Tao Fan: HK$343,000
5th – Sandeep Kumar: HK$250,000
6th – Paawan Bansal: HK$182,000
7th – Fernando Brito: HK$132,500
8th – Boon Leong Tan: HK$96,300
9th – Ben Lai: HK$96,300

Singapore’s Alan Lim claims the No Limit Hold’em Turbo

Before all the other events graced the tournament floor, the PokerStars Championship Macau kicked off its festivities with the NL Hold’em Turbo event. There were a total of 57 entries, each one putting up the HK$4,400 buy-in for a HK$221,160 (US$28,468) prize pool.

Although the field was small, the first trophy went to Singapore’s Alan Lim who impressively defeated the decorated French pro Jacques Zaicik at the heads up round. Lim shipped in HK$54,720 (US$7,044) and his third live tournament score of the year.

Somuchpoker.com will have more updates on the ongoing PokerStars Championship Macau so check back with us on the latest news.

Article by Triccia David