Performance of the Week: Ben Tollerene Wins the PSC Panama Super High Roller
Every week, PokerNews will bring you the top performance from the previous week.
There were many great performances last week: Michael Del Vecchio shipping his first World Poker Tour title by winning the WPT Rolling Thunder $3,500 Main Event for $284,638, Petr Svoboda winning the PokerStars Festival Rozvadov €1,100 Main Event for €124,346 as part of a four-way deal and Stephen Chidwick navigating through a star-studded field to win the PokerStars Championship Panama $25,500 Single-Day High Roller for $366,500.
However, it was Ben Tollerene who was the cream of the crop last week. Not only did he win the biggest prize of the week after taking down the PokerStars Championship Panama $50,000 Super High Roller for $538,715, he did so in amazing fashion by single-handedly eliminating every player on the six-max final table.
Defining Moment
Tollerene entered the six-max final table as the chip leader and never looked back. This is an achievement in itself. However, to do so by eliminating every player isn't something happens every day.
Tollerene first eliminated Timothy Adams (sixth place - $110,920) before he went on to take out Orpen Kisacikoglu (fifth place - $142,600), Steve O'Dwyer (fourth place - $182,220) and Justin Bonomo (third place - $237,680).
Daniel Dvoress was the only man left standing with just 10 big blinds and facing a 10:1 chip disadvantage against Tollerene. Dvoress doubled up when his king-nine held against his opponent's jack-two before Tollerene chipped him back down to under 10 big blinds.
Just a few minutes later, and just 4 1/2 hours into the final table, the defining moment of Tollerene's dominating performance came. Tollerene sealed the deal in eliminating every player on the table to claim the title after he got it all in with king-five and outgunned his opponent's ace-nine after a king spiked the river. Dvoress didn't walk away empty-handed as he took home the runner-up prize of $372,360.
Tollerene admitted his amazing performance was smooth sailing despite fierce competition when asked if his victory was as easy a high-stakes live tournament win can get.
"Yeah, I can't really imagine a smoother final table than that," Tollerene said. "I think I lost one all in against [Daniel Dvoress] for like 10 blinds and won every other one. I can't remember actually even losing a significant pot, which is pretty rare."
Social Media Reaction
While Tollerene did not tweet about his performance to his over 6,200 Twitter followers, he did get the recognition he deserved on social media from others.
PokerStars shared that Tollerene was the inaugural High Roller Champ to its 263,000 followers. A couple of dozen of people liked this tweet including independent poker reporter and producer Lizzy Harrison.
We have a winner at #PSCPanama! ## GG inaugural High Roller Champ Ben Tollerene, who won $538,715. Read more here:… https://t.co/0g6XIIy3N3
— PokerStars (@PokerStars)
PocketFives Community Manager Kevin Mathers congratulated Tollerene to his more than 32,000 Twitter followers.
Congrats to Ben Tollerene, winner of the @PokerStarsLIVE Panama $50k SHR for $538,715 https://t.co/E4yYTJRVtt
— Kevin Mathers (@Kevmath)
Not everyone was of a serious nature, however. Andy Mclaren joked about a coaching related controversy brought to light last year with Doug Polk after Tollerene's performance.
Jeez @Bttech86 has really been on a tear ever since he got some coaching from @DougPolkPoker
— Andy Mac (@Mclaren7Andy)
Recent and Career Results
Tollerene now has almost $2.7 million in live tournament cashes placing him in ninth place in The Hendon Mob Texas All Time Money List. Almost $1 million of that came this year.
During a one week span in January, Tollerene took sixth place in PokerStars Championship Bahamas $50,000 No Limit Hold'em event for $205,400 and second place in the PokerStars Championship Bahamas $25,750 Pot Limit Omaha event for $48,133 before winning the PokerStars Championship Bahamas $10,200 No Limit Hold'em - Six Max Turbo event for $149,700.
Tollerene's amazing victory wasn't his largest cash haul. Over a year ago, he won the runner-up prize in the 2016 Aussie Millions Poker Championship No Limit Hold'em $100,000 Challenge for A$924,140 ($646,942).
The Texas native also has held his own in online poker as well. Just a week prior to this amazing performance, Tollerene was online poker biggest cash game winner with $103,619 in profit and taking down some of the biggest pots of the week. After this performance, Tollerene was closing in on almost $4 million in online ring game profit, making him one of the most successful online poker players of all time.
Tollerene isn't a one-trick pony online. He has amassed $2,540,823 in career online tournament cashes according to PocketFives, where he is ranked in 659th place in the world.
His biggest online tournament cash came in September 2015 when he won the 2015 PokerStars WCOOP $51,000 Super High Roller event for $616,518 after agreeing to a three-way deal.
At the time, this was the largest online buy-in for a tournament in history before a year later Sweden's "bencb789" won the 2016 PokerStars WCOOP $102,000 Super High Roller for $1,172,461.
