Final Hand Cooler Keys Michael Addamo to SHRB VI Victory

Michael Addamo scooped the Super High Roller Bowl VI title on Wednesday for $3.4 million, his third consecutive high roller tournament win. In the process, he became Australia’s all-time winningest live tournament player.

Addamo, now with $13.5 million, surpassed 2005 WSOP Main Event champion Joe Hachem, who has $12.7 million in cashes. Kahle Burns drops to third place in Australian history at $10.7 million.

Month to Remember

It’s been a memorable month for the SHRB champion. He started things off with a win in Poker Masters Event #11: $50,000 No-Limit Hold’em, for $680,000. In the ensuing Poker Masters tournament — Event #12: $100,000 No-Limit Hold’em — he again took it down, this one for $1,160,000, along with the Purple Jacket, which is awarded to the overall series champion.

The Australian poker pro looked to make it three straight in the $300,000 buy-in Super High Roller Bowl at the PokerGO Studio in Las Vegas. On Day 1, he busted out to a strong start thanks in large part to a massive pot he won against Daniel Negreanu in Level 1.

In that hand against Negreanu, he got paid off with the nut straight when he over-bet the river. Interestingly enough, he used the same strategy to finish off Justin Bonomo heads-up for the title on the very last hand of the tournament.

Alex Foxen’s Luck Runs Out

Heading into the final day, Addamo held a massive chip lead over his four opponents. The pressure was on given that 40% of the remaining players on Wednesday would go home down their $300,000 buy-in, and the minimum cash was just north of $1 million.

Alex Foxen entered play fourth in chips and was looking to rebound from a disappointing Day 2 finish. The former college football athlete held a huge chip lead throughout much of Day 2, but lost back more than half his stack before Tuesday’s session concluded. On Day 3, he couldn’t get anything going and was eliminated in fifth place out of 21, two spots shy of the money.

Unlike Foxen, Chris Brewer had been nursing a small stack throughout most of the final two days. He never could quite grind his way back into contention. With Bonomo holding a big stack on the button, he jammed with the two small stacks — Brewer and Sean Winter — in the blinds.

The blind stealing attempt didn’t work because Brewer woke up with and promptly made the call. But he would end up bubbling when the board ran out , giving Bonomo a winning flush. That set up three-handed play and the pressure of the money bubble was no longer a factor. The following is a look at the chip counts when three-handed play began:

Addamo Goes Wire-to-Wire

Winter was fortunate to have escaped the bubble, but he wasn’t able to hold on much longer, although he did pick up a few chips before his final hand. In that hand, Addamo raised the 30,000 big blind to 65,000 on the button with and then called an all-in three-bet from Winter () for 815,000 total.

The board came out , giving Addamo the nut straight and a huge chip lead over Bonomo as heads-up play was about to begin. Winter was out in third place and received $1,008,000 for his efforts.

Bonomo, who made his return to live tournament poker for the first time in nearly two years, made a few plays during heads-up play. He grinded for over an hour, but couldn’t ever catch up, and lost a rough hand to end the tournament.

From the button, Bonomo opened to 80,000 with and his heads-up opponent called the raise with . The flop came out and both players checked. When the turned over on the turn, Bonomo hit top pair but was drawing dead. Addamo, who used the over-bet to his advantage multiple times during the tournament, bet 250,000 into a pot of 190,000.

Bonomo, holding top pair, made the call only to see, as PokerGO commentator Nick Schulman said, “the worst card in the world” on the river. That card was the .

Addamo again over-bet the pot, this time putting his opponent all-in for just over 2 million chips. Bonomo used a multitude of time extension chips before deciding that top two-pair was just too strong heads-up to fold. He made the call and found out the bad news. As a consolation prize, he received $1,890,000, and the winner took home $3,402,000. Final table results were as follows:

_{*Images courtesy of PokerGO.}