Michael Addamo made quick work of the final table in the 2021 Poker Masters $50,000 buy-in no-limit hold’em event. The two-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner from Melbourne, Australia needed just two hours to convert his chip lead at the start of the final day into the title, eliminating every opponent along the way to earn $680,000.
“It was incredible. I had a great stretch of hands and I pretty much had it the whole time on the final table, so I can’t credit it to any good bluffing skills. Just good fortune,” Addamo told PokerGO reporters after coming out on top.
In addition to the title and the money, Addamo also earned 408 rankings points towards both the Card Player Player of the Year race and the PokerGO Tour standings. This was his first qualified cash of 2021 for both points races.
Addamo also earned 408 points in the Poker Masters player of the series rankings, moving him into first place in the race for the purple jacket and $50,000 in added prize money.
The penultimate event of the Poker Masters attracted a field of 34 entries, building a $1,700,000 prize pool that was paid out among the top five finishers. Addamo entered the final table at the top of the chip counts. He quickly added to his lead by picking up pocket kings against the pocket jacks of Cary Katz. All of the chips went in preflop, and Addamo’s kings held up eliminated Katz in fifth place ($119,000). This was Katz’s 17th POY-qualified final table of 2021. He earned enough rankings points to climb into 11th place in the POY race while also moving into fourth place on the PokerGO Tour leaderboard.
Alex Foxen was the next to fall. He three-bet to commit the majority of his stack from the small blind with K
J
facing a button raise from Addamo, who moved all-in with A
K. Foxen called and failed to improve on a 10
6337 runout. He took home $187,000 and 204 POY points for his 15th final-table finish of the year. He is now ranked 13th in both the POY and the PokerGO Tour standings.
Addamo took roughly 60 percent of the chips into three-handed play. David Coleman was the shortest stack, but he still had more than 25 big blinds to work with. He battled on for another hour but was unable to get much going. He eventually got his last six big blinds preflop with QJ racing against the 44 of Addamo. Neither player improved and Coleman hit the rail in third place ($272,000). This was his seventh cash PokerGO Tour, with more than $1.3 million in qualifying earnings. As a result, he now occupies the 19th-place spot on that leaderboard.
With three knockouts under his belt already, Addamo took more than a 4:1 chip lead into heads-up play with Jason Koon, who was at his third final table of the series. The stacks were essentially unchanged 20 or so minutes into the match, when Koon looked down at K6 and moved all-in from the button for around 18 big blinds. Addamo called with KJ and the board ran out 8544K to give Addamo kings and fours with a winning jack kicker. Koon took home $442,000 and 340 POY points for his sixth final-table finish of 2021. With $552,400 in winnings at the Poker Masters, Koon is currently ranked sixth in the race for the purple jacket heading into the final event of the series.
Here is a look at the payouts and rankings points awarded at the final table:
| Place | Player | Earnings | POY Points | PokerGO |
| 1 | Michael Addamo | $680,000 | 408 | 408 |
| 2 | Jason Koon | $442,000 | 340 | 265 |
| 3 | David Coleman | $272,000 | 272 | 163 |
| 4 | Alex Foxen | $187,000 | 204 | 112 |
| 5 | Cary Katz | $119,000 | 170 | 71 |
Photo provided by PokerGO.