Just 8 players remain in the 2017 $300k buy-in Super High Roller Bowl after a furious day of action on Day 3 yesterday.
The big problem for one of those eight? Only seven will get paid.
That means the final table will begin tomorrow with an incredulous $600k bubble.
Originally the tournament was only scheduled to play down to nine players but a double elimination on the final hand of play (on two different tables) means that producers will have to deal with one less character tomorrow.
Both reigning champ Rainer Kempe and businessman/high roller master Dan Shakhad the misfortune of busting as Day 3 drew to a close. Shak and Kempe were among the 12 players that busted in a little over five hours of play on Day 3.
Final Table Dominated by Pros
There weren’t a lot of amateurs in the 2017 Super High Roller Bowl and it’s safe to say the final table is made up almost entirely of pros.
Jake Schindler, who’s been crushing high roller tournaments for years, has a considerable chip lead at the final table with 4m chips.
Jason Koon will play from the short stack.
German pro Christoph Vogelsang and American Byron Kaverman aren’t that far behind with 2.6m and 2.2 million respectively.
Essentially the only player left that would qualify as a businessman is King’s Casino founder Leon Toukernik but he has a wealth of experience playing high rollers.
He even took down the last EPT Super High Roller ever last December. Toukernik will take 1.7 million to the final table.
The final table is rounded out by German pro Stefan Schillhabel who finished with 1.8 million. Schillhabel’s biggest score is $266,158 so even a min-cash in this tournament would trump that.
Former spelling bee champ Pratyush Buddiga has 1.79m. Buddiga has several high-profile scores to his name but has yet to take one down outright.
Fellow American Justin Bonomo is right next to Buddiga in chips with 1.73 million.
Finally Jason Koon will be on the hot seat tomorrow with 685,000 and he’ll be looking to avoid what could be the biggest bubble of the entire year.
Here’s a complete look at the chip counts:
Jake Schindler — 4,090,000
Christoph Vogelsang — 2,650,000
Byron Kaverman — 2,200,000
Stefan Schillhabel — 1,890,000
Pratyush Buddiga — 1,790,000
Justin Bonomo — 1,735,000
Leon Tsoukernik — 1,700,000
Jason Koon — 685,000
$1m Freeroll for Rainer Kempe Quashed
At one point on Day 3 last year’s winner Rainer Kempe was down to just one big blind and, incredibly, King’s Casino founder Leon Tsoukernik offered Kempe a $1m freeroll if he were to make a massive comeback and win the tournament for the second year in a row.
So close, yet so far.
Even more incredible, Rainer successfully fought back to 500k+ chips. One assumes Tsoukernik was starting to sweat.
Tsoukernik got some relief, however, as Kempe busted 10th when his pocket nines failed against Stefan Schillhabel's tens.
At the exact moment Kempe busted, Dan Shak was all-in against Jake Schindler on the other table.
Shak held pocket jacks to Schindler’s ace-king. Everything looked good for Shak until an ace rolled off the deck on the river.
Daniel Negreanu, Jason Mercier, Brain Rast and Zach Hyman were also among the players to bust on Day 3.
PokerGo will once again be streaming all the action tomorrow starting at 1:30. Interestingly the plan is to play until three players remain and then pause the action for one more day.
Here’s a look at the payouts that await the players who survive the first elimination tomorrow:
1. $6,000,000
2. $3,600,000
3. $2,400,000
4. $1,800,000
5. $1,400,000
6. $1,000,000
7. $600,000
