Player of the Week: Elio Fox

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Jun 04, 2018 5 min read Last updated Apr 21, 2020

Global Poker presents the Player of the Week. Every week during the WSOP, we pick the player that has shined the brightest on the biggest stage in poker. This week, it's Elio Fox kicking things off for the series.

Two final tables, one bracelet, one runner-up finish. That would be an impressive summer for most poker players at the WSOP. But for Elio Fox, that’s just the first six days of action at this World Series of Poker – with five weeks left to go. And winning almost $2.2 million is pretty nice too. With such a massive beginning to the summer, Fox earns the Player of the Week honors we think.

To kick things off this summer, Fox took home $393,693 and the bracelet in the new $10,000 Super Turbo Bounty No-Limit Hold'em event. The one-day event featured 243 entries and plenty of big names hoping to win the first bracelet of the summer.

Only a few days later, Fox was at it again battling heads-up in against Nick Petrangelo in the $100,000 No-Limit Hold’em High Roller where he finished second for $1.8 million. Fox said the big finishes mean a lot considering he hasn’t seen the results he’s been hoping for recently.

“I’m super happy obviously,” he said after finishing runner-up on Monday. “I haven’t done well live for a long time and it just feels really good. I think I’ve played pretty well, but I’ve been running really good.”

“I haven’t done well live for a long time and it just feels really good. I think I’ve played pretty well, but I’ve been running really good.”

After the win, Fox planned to take a few days off to rest. He then planned to play as many as No Limit Hold’em events at the Rio as possible and several more around Las Vegas at other tournament series.

“I’m going to take a while off, I’m not really sure what I’m going to play next,” he said. “I haven’t really looked at the schedule in a few days, but I’m sure later in the week I’ll get back at it.”

The addition of the Super Turbo Bounty event to the schedule was a good decision, Fox said, and offers something different for players.

“There was such a big field,” Fox said shortly after his victory in the Super Turbo Bounty. “And I think there was a good mixture of pros and recreational players. I think doing turbos is great because it’s good for non-professional players who can finish an event quickly.”

Some experience playing the events online helped, he said, and Fox made good use of those skills. Fox scored a double knockout late in the tournament when only five-handed, which made him a huge chip favorite and helped seal the victory for this New Yorker.

With blinds at 80,000/160,000, Fox raised to 320,000 from the cutoff. Danny Wong three-bet all in from the small blind for his last 2.8 million. Charles Johanin then moved all in for 600,000 from the big blind. Fox made the call, showing ace-king, Wong showed ace-ten, and Johanin showed jacks.

The five-three-six suited flop looked good for Johanin. However, the turn brought an ace. The off suit river four sent both players packing. He would go on to eliminate Paul Volpe and defeat Adam Adler heads-up.

“It put me in a really good situation three-handed, having more chips than Paul,” Fox said of the double bust-out. “It meant I could play a lot of pots and put pressure on him, especially with the payout structure. And he was forced to fold a lot because of the short stack, so it definitely swung things in my favor.”

Fox, who won the 2011 WSOP Europe Main Event for $1.87 million, added a second bracelet to his poker resumé, but was battling for another piece of hardware less than a week later.

On Monday, Fox entered the mothership battling heads-up against Petrangelo in the $100,000 High Roller event that attracted 102 entries and $10.2 million prize pool.

“Sometimes that just happens in a small set of tournaments and you look like a genius, but I don’t think that’s the case.”

When the two players reached heads-up play, Fox held only 13 million chips to Petrangelo’s 40 million. Despite the chip disadvantage, Fox was able to erase that lead and take a slight chip advantage over Petrangelo within an hour of heads-up play.

Petrangelo would ultimately prevail, but Fox added another huge finish in the WSOP’s first six days. Petrangelo has had a huge week also – finishing sixth in the Super High Roller Bowl for $900,000 and then winning the High Roller for $2.9 million.

For Fox, the two deep runs bring his career live tournament winnings to $5.6 million. Along with these two finishes, another nice bullet point in his career was winning the $20,000 No Limit Hold'em High Roller at the World Poker Tour Seminole Hard Rock Showdown in 2013 for $90,410. One more nice win came in the $10,000 Bellagio Cup Vii in 2011 for $669,692.

So far, with five weeks left, Fox is on a major heater and playing fantastic poker with plenty more opportunities to come. When considering the big week, Fox tries to stay humble.

“Sometimes that just happens in a small set of tournaments and you look like a genius, but I don’t think that’s the case,” he says. “It takes a lot of luck to win a big tournament.”

It takes plenty of skill too – and Fox has been proving that.

Sean Chaffin is a freelance writer in Crandall, Texas. His work appears in numerous websites and publications. Follow him on Twitter @PokerTraditions. He is also the host of the True Gambling Stories podcast, available on iTunes, Google Play, TuneIn Radio, Spotify, Stitcher, PokerNews.com, HoldemRadio.com, and TrueGamblingStories.com.

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