Sam Greenwood Wins PokerStars and Monte-Carlo©Casino EPT €100K Super High Roller
They just can't stop Sam Greenwood in the high rollers.
In the same month that he already won two high roller titles, the Canadian crusher shipped the €100K Super High Roller here at 2018 PokerStars and Monte-Carlo©Casino EPT. Greenwood topped a stacked final table for €1,520,000, the biggest win in a sterling career that's now surpassed the $10 million milestone.
Just a week ago, Greenwood won the WPT Amsterdam High Roller for €125,785. Less than two weeks before that, he won the partypoker LIVE MILLIONS Grand Final €51,000 Super High Roller for €1 million.
€100,000 Super High Roller Final Result
| Place | Player | Country | Prize | Prize in $* |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sam Greenwood | Canada | €1,520,000 | $1,843,681 |
| 2 | Christoph Vogelsang | Germany | €1,046,000 | $1,268,743 |
| 3 | Ali Reza Fatehi | Iran | €669,920 | $812,806 |
| 4 | Ole Schemion | Germany | €513,000 | $622,417 |
| 5 | Justin Bonomo | United States | €401,000 | $486,529 |
| 6 | Isaac Haxton | United States | €313,000 | $379,759 |
* prize in $ via XE.com
To get this particular win, Greenwood had to top as stacked a final table as one would expect in a €100K. The list of poker superstars he got through at the final table started with American legend Isaac Haxton who was looking to make a dogged three-bullet effort pay off.
Chip leader Christoph Vogelsang barreled into Haxton twice blind versus blind with an overpair, jacks, and Haxton tried semi-bluff shoving the turn with an open-ended straight draw. Vogelsang thought briefly and called, eliminating Haxton when the river missed him.
One of the most memorable hands of the tournament cropped up five-handed, when it looked like Vogelsang's dominance would come to a crashing halt. He got coolered when he ran queens into fellow German Ole Schemion's aces, but just calling the four-bet set up postflop play. A nine-high flop with a pair of diamonds prompted a small bet of 435,000 by Schemion into a pot of about 1.8 million. Vogelsang called and somehow found a fold to a turn shove of 1.4 million after another nine hit.
Failing to secure a double would prove costly for Schemion. After Justin Bonomo got coolered with bottom two against middle two versus Ali Reza Fatehi, Schemion went out fourth when he shoved 20 big blinds over Greenwood's button open holding seven-six suited, but Greenwood had the goods with queens.
"If the cards aren't going your way [heads up], it can get very frustrating and it's stressful."
Undoubtedly the Cinderella story, Fatehi sought to better his third-place result from this event in 2016, which he said was the first tournament he ever played. He's since become a fixture in the European nosebleeds and acclimated to the high level of play, but he'd have to settle for a repeat third. Greenwood cracked his queens with king-eight and then Vogelsang turned a straight flush against his flopped nut straight.
Two aggressive pros and fewer than 100 big blinds total. While that might seem like a recipe for a quick match, what followed was anything but hasty. Veterans Greenwood and Vogelsang would battle for about three hours. Greenwood held the initial lead but Vogelsang ran hot early and grabbed command, going up about 4-1 at one point.
Greenwood admitted he wouldn't call himself a heads-up specialist, and the early tide may have taken a toll on him.
"If the cards aren't going your way [heads up], it can get very frustrating and it's stressful," he said.
Luckily for Greenwood, things turned when his king-seven prevailed over ace-six all in preflop. He then doubled again with aces over deuces all in preflop and suddenly had a healthy lead. Stacks were short at that point with fewer than 50 big blinds in play, and the end came quickly when Greenwood's king-jack bested ace-five suited.
Greenwood: "When you win, all the mistakes you made along the way don't really matter."
"When you win, all the mistakes you made along the way don't really matter," Greenwood said. "When you lose, you can kind of stew over them and second-guess yourself. No regrets, I can sleep easy tonight."
After a similarly white-hot week in late 2017 that saw Greenwood get third, second, and first in a series of events, he proclaimed that he had never run so good. Under than six months later, that might be subject to revision.
Even in the age of the inflated money totals that the high roller scene has ushered in, it takes sustained excellence to cash for $10 million. When asked how he'd react if someone had told him at the start of his poker career that he'd hit that lofty total, Greenwood had an immediate response.
"I probably would have thought that I won the [WSOP] Main Event," Greenwood said with a smile. "I can't complain, everything's great, but winning the Main Event would have been better."
With how well Greenwood plays combined with how hot he's running, don't be surprised if that's the next feat he pulls off.
Photos courtesy of Neil Stoddart, PokerStars.
The Stars Group is a majority shareholder in iBus Media
