Three of the top high roller tournament poker pros in the world chopped the $25,500 buy-in GGPoker Spring Festival Super High Roller. Stephen Chidwick, however, was crowned the champion and received an extra $6,500 prize.
Chidwick was paid $442,339 total for 1st place. Daniel Dvoress, who was slotted in 2nd place, took home $435,831, and Nick Petrangelo, the 3rd-place finisher based on chip stack at the time of the chop, received $433,757 in the chop.
After Mikita Badziakouski, who recently won a GGPoker high roller for $1.1 million, busted in 4th place ($254,135), the remaining players took a five-minute break. When they came back, they agreed to chop up the more than $1.3 million left in the prize pool. This is common practice in high rollers when so much money is at stake. Players often don't want to risk getting unlucky and losing out on hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Stacked final table
The GGPoker Spring Festival Super High Roller attracted 96 players and created a $3.4 million prize pool. Among those entrants were many of the regulars on the high roller circuit, including the top four finishers.
Steve O'Dwyer, who mysteriously refuses to play tournaments in his home country, the United States, took 5th place for $195,918. O'Dwyer is an interesting player who only plays abroad, but he's amassed $30 million in live tournament cashes, which ranks him 12th all-time. That's even more impressive when you consider he doesn't even play WSOP events or the high rollers in Las Vegas.
Sam Greenwood, along with his brother Luc Greenwood, is becoming one of the consistent high rollers in the world, in both live and online in events such as the GGPoker Spring Festival Super High Roller. In that event, the Canadian poker pro took 7th place for $116,438.
But it's tough to top the talent of the top three. Chidwick, Petrangelo, and Dvoress are all past WSOP bracelet winners and have a combined $71 million in lifetime live tournament winnings. Since COVID-19 struck last year and forced the cancellation of most live high-stakes tournaments, they've all found continued success online, which shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who has followed their brilliant careers.
Many consider Chidwick the top no-limit hold'em tournament player in the world, and it's tough to argue otherwise. He's been consistently dominant for more than five years in the toughest and most prestigious events around the globe. The British poker pro with over $34.7 million in lifetime live tournament cashes, earned another big score, this one online, in the GGPoker Super High Roller.
When three-handed play began, Chidwick had the biggest stack and was therefore awarded slightly more cash than the other two remaining players.
Dvoress is having quite a year on the online poker streets. He won the WPT Mike Sexton Classic on partypoker for $294,000 earlier this year, along with numerous cashes in the 2020 WSOP Online Bracelet Series. And now he's picked up another $435,832 score on GGPoker.
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