Schindler Cracks Aces to Take Commanding Lead into Final Day
Jake Schindler began Day 4 of the $300,000 Super High Roller Bowl at ARIA as the chip leader after his late Day 3 heater. He finished it as the chip leader as well with the field being reduced from nine to just three, and it was all thanks to one massive pot he played against a fellow big stack.
Christoph Vogelsang opened for 90,000 at 20,000/40,000/20,000 — the ante in this structure is paid by the big blind — and Schindler called on the button with pocket eights. Buddiga put in a three-bet to 400,000 with aces in the big blind, and Schindler peeled the flop and hit a set.
The board was dangerous as it was queen-eight-seven with two hearts. Buddiga elected to check-call bets of 400,000 on the flop and 750,000 on an offsuit three on the turn. He checked a final time when another three fell, and Schindler jammed. Buddiga used an extension for his timer but couldn't get away, ultimately paying off the boat.
That pot gave Schindler roughly half of the chips seven-handed. Jason Koon bubbled the event after a marathon eight-handed run to start the day that lasted roughly five hours. He was never really able to climb very far out of the basement after coming in as the short stack. He finally fell jamming a straight draw when Schindler flopped a set.
Once the money bubble burst and Schindler ascended into his lead, others were naturally much shorter. Dominoes started to fall at that point. First, Justin Bonomo got unlucky when he raised rags and flopped trip deuces in a blind battle against Vogelsang, only to have the German run a straight after check-calling king-high overcards on the flop.
Then, Buddiga flopped inferior top pair against Leon Tsoukernik and went bust in sixth.
Schindler was able to flop a set with eights against Buddiga's aces, but when he got in the reverse scenario with his own bullets against Byron Kaverman's eights, the board preserved his lead despite Kaverman turning straight and flush draws.
Tsoukernik was the final amateur remaining in the event, but his run ended in fourth when he ran ace-ten of diamonds into the pocket aces of Vogelsang.
That means it'll be an all-pro final three coming back for Day 5. Schindler holds 10,670,000, or roughly two-thirds of the remaining chips. Vogelsang has 5,245,000, and his fellow German Stefan Schillhabel brings up the rear with just 885,000. He'll have a lot of work to do with a little under 15 big blinds at the restart.
They'll be playing for $6 million up top when they resume at 1 p.m. Thursday. The runner-up will get $3.6 million and the third-place finisher $2.4 million. Updates will be on PokerNews and live streaming provided by PokerGo.