Vegas, Baby! Laskoqitz Wins the NAPT High Roller for $180 850!
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the poker community were excited for the North American Poker Tour (NAPT) 2023. The event announced earlier this year that it would return after a 12-year long hiatus and the poker tournament schedule had poker players walking on needles. The NAPT organization made a great event not only focusing on the featured tournaments, but they also live-streamed the $1 650 Main Event and the $5 300 High Roller final table. They also had a collaboration with the Formula 1 circuit, treating poker players with an experience of a lifetime away from the poker tables. Qualifications for the 2024 season of “the Big Game” also ran during the event. As you can hear, NAPT 2023 surely returned with a bang!
The previously mentioned $5 300 High Roller event was, of course, a very interesting tournament to follow. After the final six table had battled it out on the final table, a winner was crowned, and his name was Samuel Laskowitz!
Laskowitz, the Highroller King!
Laskowitz, who’s originally from New York, stood for one of the 150 entries in the tournament. After day 1, he bagged his chips and would return to the final table the following day with second most in chips.
The final table were played 6-handed, and only Jesse Lonis arrived as the chip leader. The first two player to bid farewell were Alex Condon and John Andress. Shortly thereafter, Lonis eliminated John Riordian in 4th place. Consider Lonis won the $10 000 Super High Roller earlier during the week, one could assume he felt confident with his game.
Lonis soon found himself in a big pot with Laskowitz. It was Laskowitz who initially opened the pot from the Button with a 120 000 raise holding K Q . Lonis looked down at K 2 from the Small Blind and decided to raise to 475 000. After Shannon Shorr folded his Big Blind, Laskowitz called. The players were treated with a 3 2 4 flop and Lonis led out with 275 000. Laskowitz called, bringing the 9 turn. Lonis now slowed down and Laskowitz saw his chance and took it. He bet 425 000, which led to Lonis folding and Laskowitz drastically improved his stack.
“A Lot of Hard Work and Good Luck”
Shortly thereafter, Laskowitz managed to knock out Lonis in third place. He was now Heads Up against Shannon Shorr and held a significant chip advantage. After a while, he called off Shorr’s 11 Big Blind shove with K 10 . Shorr held Q 10 and seeing as there were no queen on the 5 A 8 6 8 board, Shorr finished as the runner up and Laskowitz took the first prize sum of $180 850!
The win seemed meaningful to Laskowitz:
“It makes me feel like I belong and that I can play at this level and succeed. A lof of hard work and good luck!”
We salute NAPT for a very successful comeback, and hope that we’ll see them in the future next year as well!
NAPT 2023 $5 300 High Roller Final Table Payouts:
| Position | Player | Payout |
|---|---|---|
| 1. |  Samuel Laskowitz | $180 850 |
| 2. | Shannon Shorr | $113 030 |
| 3. | Jesse Lonis | $80 740 |
| 4. | John Riordan | $62 105 |
| 5. | John Andress | $47 770 |
| 6. | Alexander Condon | $36 745 |
