Brazilian Ronaldo
Ronaldo has long been known for his football ability, but recently his poker ability has been making an appearance in the form of a 26th place finish out of 816 runners at the PCA Main Event. He took home over $42,000 for his achievement and was clearly very happy with his result. His chip stack updates gathered quite a following on twitter, proving that signing former sports stars to Pokerstars helps raise the profile of the game. He bested golfer Sergio Garcia's 52nd place finish in the same event 3 years ago, and is clearly making progress on his poker learning curve. Ronaldo has stated that he has a hunger for taking on challenges and poker is something he enjoys putting his time into, both live, and online. He also mentions that there is great potential for poker growth in his homeland.
Ronaldo on Poker In Brazil "It can become like Football" – Photo Pokerstars
Spin & Go Jackpot
The well publicised spin & go tables recently added to Pokerstars have drawn a mixed review from the poker world. Many serious players see the new sit n gos as a further step by the new owners towards making poker a luck based lottery however they can. While this may result in disillusion by some players, you can't argue with the positives it brings to weaker recreational players. Rather losing quickly on tables full of sharks, they can splash around in sit n gos which are far more gamble orientated in every way. One player who would certainly be a fan of spin & gos is the winner of their $1 million jackpot 'sss66666.' The Russian player hit the extremely unlikely jackpot on the $5 hyper turbo short stacked table. The odds of a $5 table generating a $1 million 1st prize were reported as being around 3,300,000 to 1. The other two players at the jackpot table received $100,000 prizes.
PCA Series
The 2015 PCA main event has reached its conclusion, with Kevin Schulz emerging as victor. He was not the largest stack when final table play began, but managed to knock out most of the other players to reach heads up play with a 4 to 1 chip lead. Schulz would undoubtedly be the first to admit that he ran good on the final table, picking up aces against ace-king, and making quads with Q9 against AQ. This takes nothing away from the fact that he played very well to reach the final table and was calm and commanding through heads up play. He picked up almost $1.5 million for his efforts, with well known pro Chance Kornuth finishing a respectable 3rd for $641,000. The high roller event attracted a surprisingly large field of 269 runners, who all bought in for $25,000. The final table included pros such as Faraz Jaka, Scott Seiver, and Joe Keuther. They fell in 7th, 5th and 2nd respectively. It was relatively unknown player Ilkin Garibli who eventually triumphed, overcoming many talented pros along the way. He took home more than $1.1 million for his win.
Kevin Shultz won the 2015 PCA Main Event – Photo Neil Stoddart