Speaker 1: Hello, everyone, Welcome back to a new episode of the
Poker Go Podcast. My name is Donnie Peters. It is
good to be back. It is Saturday, June twentieth, twelve
thirty eight am. I am still at the World Series
of Poker. I am at Paris. I'm trying to wait
on this Sean Deeb versus Joey Coodin heads up match
in the three K nine game Mix aka the Mini PPC.
Really wish they would change that name, Jeff Platt, make
it happen, buddy, change the name. You got the Mini
Mystery Millions, you got the Mini main Event. We the
Mini PPC. Like, let's go trying to wait this out.
The plan was that if this ends, I'm gonna interview
Sean Deeb if he wins and gets his ninth bracelet,
and then work that into the pod and talk about it.
Because it's about to be twelve forty am. I think
I'm just gonna bang out this pod and then leave
whatever happens in that tournament until the next episode. It
has been a couple of days since I've been on
this microphone. I've been feeling under the weather. Haven't been
able to pod at nighttime, trying to get my rest
so I can somehow survive the summer. It's just that
every time I get into this place for the World
Series of Poker, I'm just around all these animals that
bring all these different types of viruses and diseases and
germs and bacteria from god knows where. It just eats
my body alive, so trying to survive through it all.
So that's why I haven't been doing the show for
the past couple of days. But here we are tonight,
and we have a wide variety of winners to talk
about one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight people,
eight players, one gold bracelets that we're going to get
caught up on. But first I do need to remind
you guys that season sixteen of High Sakes Poker is
airing now on Poker Go. And the reason why I
want to bring it up is because what just dropped
includes the largest ever pot in high stakes poker history,
more than two point four million dollars in the middle
and no, it was not chopped. This is a single
winner pot. So you guys can check out all the
new episodes from season sixteen of High Stakes Poker exclusively
on Poker Go, and if you want to save some bucks,
head on over to poker Go use the promo code
HSP sixteen when you sign up for a new annual plan.
It also works if you're a monthly or a quarterly
subscriber and you want to upgrade because that promo code
will get you thirty dollars off your first year. All right,
straight into it here. First up, we got Alex Foxen.
That's right. We talked about Kristen Foxen winning. Now we
got Alex Foxen winning. He won the ten K Super
Turbo Bounty, a single day event. Fox And top d
field of four hundred forty six entries to win almost
six hundred thousand dollars. Don't know what he won in bounties.
Believe it was seven K to the prize bowl three
K per bounty. I'm assuming well, I mean he got
at least one bounty for winning the tournament. I'm assuming
it was many more with the way that fox And plays,
so probably well over the six hundred thousand dollars mark
going to him fourth WSOP bracelets might be surprising to
hear that it is only his fourth with how successful
Alex Foxen is, But you know, it's his fourth right now,
and I'm assuming he's gonna get many, many more throughout
his career. He beat Yikshi Tang in heads up play,
Tang taking home almost four hundred thousand dollars for his
finish there. Martin Zemani made the final table, Harvey Castro
made the final table. Jamie Dwan made the final table
as well. This fourth bracelet for fox And comes after
he won his first bracelet was in twenty twenty two.
He won the two hundred and fifty K Super High
Roller for more than four point five million dollars. Then
he won an online bracelet. He won the five hundred
dollars pot limit Omaham Mystery Bounty six Max Tournament only
twenty K. What was the prize there? Of course, it's
a mystery bounty format, so plenty of money I'm sure
went into the Mystery Bounty prize pool for that one.
And then twenty twenty four at WSP Paradise, Foxen won
one hundred thousand dollars. Triton Nolan had hold him a
main event that was a bracelet event as part of
the partnership between Triton and the World Series of Poker
down in Paradise in the Bahamas three point eighty five
million for the score there for Fox, and after the win,
he told Poker News, I think your career is really
about repeated performance and an entire body of work rather
than one event proving something. This doesn't feel like to
me as much the one that would do that, but
it's a piece of the body of work. So I'm
proud of it that that statement there from Fox, and
you know, that echo a lot of the stuff that
I've heard him say over the years, that he's told
me over the years, and some of our interviews that
we've done when he's won PGT events, you know, kind
of that same sort of line, like it's just about
building that resume, stacking that trophy case, getting those accolades
time and time again, because at the end of it all,
you know, it's about what you've done over the course
of your career, not just one month, one tournament, one year,
whatever it may be. So to me, that's that's the
bulk of the story here. A lot of poker discussion
often gets reduced to you know, we count bracelets, different titles,
WPT titles, triton titles, whatever it may be. Individual results,
you know. But Foxton's point here is just trying to
drive home that that greatness isn't concise. You know, it
is generally, or it should generally be viewed as expansive.
You know, what did you do over your entire body
of work? It's the accumulation of those results over years
and years and years. You know. The Poker Hall of
Fame always had this thing, did the players stand the
test of time? You know? And that's kind of what
Foxin is getting at here. You know, we've seen hot
streaks for let's say, a full summer at the World
Series of Poker. We've seen hot streaks for an entire year,
two years, three years, four years, whatever it may be.
But those when you when you pull back and you
look at the grand scheme of things go, those can
be just blips on the radar right now. They could
be incredibly impressive, don't get me wrong, you know, but
how good was this person from kind of when they
started playing poker to when they finished? You know, have
they done it for a long period of time? And
they did? They do it at the at the top,
you know, against the best players and constantly winning. Foxing,
to me, has done that and it's it's pretty crazy
to think that he's only thirty five years old. I
don't know. I always thought in my mind he was
a little bit closer to forty, you know, not Hall
of Fame eligible yet, but you know, get in thirty eight,
thirty nine. But the fact that he's only thirty five,
I mean, that's just absolutely wild. He just continues to
do it over and over and over again. This is
his fourth bracelet. He's the reigning PGT Player of the Year.
This was a PhD qualifying event, be it a ten
thousand dollars buying ws AP event, and he's right back
into the running now. Believe this puts him in the
top three. I think he's sitting second in the race
right now from you know, so he could go back
to back for being a PGT Player of the Year.
That's pretty crazy. Some of the other big results, you know,
these aren't all of his results that he's had during
the summer here at the World Series of Poker, but
he got sixth in the one hundred k high roller
and he got seventh in the twenty five k p
Loo high Rollers, So some two really big scores there.
In addition to this almost six hundred thousand dollars win
for fox Him. You know when I say Ford Basby bracelets,
when I say PGT Player of the Year, When I
say bracelet in the ten K Super Turbo Bounty, two
other final tables, in the o K high Roller, and
in the twenty five K POO high Roller, that for
a lot of players, that's a successful career. Like if
that happened to me, I'd be like, yes, my poker
career was a success. I crushed it. I did a
lot of really great things. I mean, But for Alex Foxen,
that's just June. Okay, that's all He's done in June
and we're only twenty days through. It's absolutely wild. He's
just going to continue to build this resume over and
over and over again, you know, I mean, as long
as he continues to play, right. I mean, he could
walk away from the game, I'm sure. But to me,
you know, fox And seems like a lifer. He's going
to be in this one until the bitter end. You know.
He also he wins it no limit. He wins in
the high rollers, he wins in PLO. He's starting to
dabble in mixed games. Now that's really specifically no limit
Deuce to seven, which is kind of a hybrid mixed game. Yes,
it's still big bed, but it's also a mixed game
format kind of. You know, he wins online, obviously, he
wins live. You know, he keeps just growing this sample size.
I would love to see if he starts really dabbling
into the mix game stuff, you know, because just with
the volume that's here at the World Series of Poker,
we could really see him do some damage and in
terms of the bracelet count, right. So yeah, it's just
really cool to see someone have this continued success like this.
I know Alex really really wants it. He's highly competitive,
and he just added another great little accolade here to
his ever growing career. We also can't forget, you know,
I mentioned it quickly off the top, but his wife,
Kristen Foxen a week ago she won the twenty five
k high Roller for one point eight million. That was
her sixth gold brace that She's got two more than
Alex does right now. So between the two of them,
I mean, what a freaking summer it's been for the
Fox's and we still have half the WSOP still to go.
This is easily I mean it's without question, husband wife combo.
This is the most successful one we've ever had and
likely we'll ever have in poker. I mean, you can
couples whatever it is. I mean, these two are the
absolute best of the best. It really is just superb stuff.
Another player who is highly talented has a ton of
stuff on his resume as well, just won his sixth
WSOP bracelet. That is Calvin Anderson. He won the ten
k Raz Championship for three hundred and fifty seven thousand dollars,
top in a field of one hundred and fifty five
entries in this championship event. Here at the World Series
of Poker for Anderson, his second time winning the ten
k Raz Championship. This time around he topped Eric Rodterwig
in heads up play. Todd Dakaki got third place, Tobias
Lechness got fourth. Tobias I believe had a final table
run in the Super High Roll of Mixed Games tournament.
If you guys here yelling, that's the that's the Sean
Deep versus Joey Coudin final table. That's behind the wall.
Here also at this final table in the ten k
Reces Championship, Max Cruse you've Al Bronstein, Philip Sternheimer, and
Shane Littlefield. So six gold racelets. Now, for Calvin Anderson,
I mentioned that he previously won the ten K Rece Championship.
Before that was back in two thousand and eighteen. I
believe it was twenty fourteen when he won his first
as ap goal bracelet and the fifteen hundred dollars stud
High Low. Then he won that ten K res Championship
in twenty eighteen. In twenty twenty three, he won two bracelets.
One was online, it came in the one K PLO
six Max. He won the or sorry, they were both online,
and then the second online one was in the fifty
three hundred dollars Super High Roller six Max about fifty
thousand dollars and then one hundred and forty one thousand
dollars there respectively. For those two wins, twenty twenty four,
Anderson won the ten K eight Game Mix Championships. So
quite the well rounded bracelet grouping here for Calvary and Anderson.
You know, and I think there's a legitimate argument that
he's one of the most overlooked elite players that we
have in poker. You know, six bracelets at the end
of the day is six bracelets. And then you know
within those bracelets two ten k Raids Championships, the eight
Game Mixed Championship. I mean, those are super super tough bracelets.
This fifty three hundred dollars Super high Roller six Max
that was played online that I'm sure was not easy
at all. I mean you also have to include in
twenty twenty three at the WPT World Championship. At the win,
he won the WPT Prime Championship for almost one point
four million dollars. I don't have no idea how many
players were in that field, but it's probably around ten
thousand or so. Who knows. He's got several other ws
AP final tables. I know, ultimately we don't always count
that are Maybe it's not that we don't count it,
we don't think about it all the time. But he's
had plenty of close runs to other WSP bracelets. You know,
he just to me, he's somebody who kind of rarely
gets discussed alongside some of the bigger names in the game,
and I think that's probably because he's not in the
spotlight as often. He doesn't play every single major tour stop.
I mean just in our little ecosystem that we deal with.
You know, he's not grinding every single PGT event. He
puts in a good amount of volume at the World
Series of Poker, but I don't think he's here playing
every single day, every single tournament like let's say in
Alex Faxon or a Sean Deep might He's just not
in that conversation. But it's not that he shouldn't be,
because cal is extremely good and every time he's in
the field, he's awesome. And I think, actually right now
as I'm recording this, I think he's still in the
ten k Horse Championship and they're down to two tables.
He was in about twenty minutes ago, so I think
he's still in. So so you know he's he's doing
it again. I mean, this guy is absolutely freaking incredible.
This tournament, this ten k Rats Championship that he just won.
I mean, he went as wire to wire as you
can come. He was the chip leader after day one,
he was the chip leader after day two, and then
he went on to win the event on day three.
Now I'm sure at some point, you know, somebody might
have overtook him and somebody else had the chip leader
when he did, and I know for sure that happened,
or at least I'm ninety eight percent sure that it
happened at the final table. So it's not exactly wire
to wire. But when when you finish day one is
the chip leader, then day two is the chip leader,
and then you go on to win the tournament and
seal the deal like that is wire to wire in poker.
I mean, that is absolutely freaking incredible. So what that
tells me is he controlled the tournament. He was in
the driver's seat from start to finish. Then you have
that historical significance of it all, winning the ten k
Ras Championship for a second time. I think now he's
now the most decorated and winningest RAS player in WSP history.
At least I saw that's what Poker News wrote. I
would believe their stats people that that's what they said.
So when it comes to Raz, specialists Calvin anders and
is right there, it's got to be the best, right
he just has to be. Now, Raz is off in
the game. Everyone loves to joke about, everyone loves to dismiss,
everyone loves to complain about, you know, all that sort
of stuff. But I think Anderson has really embraced that,
and he talked about that a little bit in the
winter interview that he did with Poker News. I won't
get too much into it, you know, I would encourage
you guys to go to Poker News, find the event,
and find what cal had to say after he won.
You know, but basically what he was saying is like,
you know, yeah, sure, people just just keep thinking that
it's all luck, you know, but you know that's that's
not what it is in this game. The point being
with all of this is that Calvin Anderson's got six bracelets.
He's won them in multiple games, multiple variants. He's got
that WPT Prime Championship, He's got several other WSP final tables.
He is a complete tournament player. He's quietly assembled because
he's not the biggest, loudest person in the room. He's
quietly assembled one of the best resumes in the game.
You know. So I think we need to start putting
a little bit more more respect on Calvin Anderson's name
out there. Marco Johnson won the twenty five hundred dollars
freeze out No Limit hold 'em tournament. For this one,
I played in this one. It did not go well.
I you start with thirty five kN chips felt like
a kind of a random number, I guess just quickly
before I get into Marco this. Let me let me
get my little spiel out of the way with how
I did. I built to about one hundred and ten
hundred and fifteen thousand pretty smoothly. Then I ran a
big bluff, bluffed off about seventy five percent of my chips.
Ultimately couldn't really recover from that. I mean I did
kind of grind back a little bit, and then three
bed jammed over a race from Bin Wang from the
small blind. The gentleman in the big blind woke up
with Ace King. I had Ace Queen, and that was
all she wrote. But felt really really good with everything
from that tournament. Feel like I'm playing really really well
right now in all summer. So yeah, I'm really happy
with things. But let's get to the real story here,
because the real story is not me and my stupid
bust out. The real story is Marco freaking Johnson, Crazy Marco,
as he often goes by, or at least he used
to go by. He topped a field of fifteen hundred
and sixty one entries to win more than five one
hundred thousand dollars his third career bracelet. Johnson, I think
it was ten It's been ten years since he won't
won a bracelet. He topped Chino Reim in heads up
play with Chino Rehim taking home three hundred and forty
two thousand dollars. Kenzo Ishida third place for oz Jaka.
I know many of you know that name. Fourth place,
Elliott Smith. I feel like I haven't seen his name
making some WSFP noise recently. He took seventh place in
this one now for Marco. You know, he's one of
the most well respected players in poker. You know some
some bracelet winners that we get every single summer, you know,
also in Europe, also in Paradise, wherever it may be.
You know, they're famous with the fans. So we're talking
in Alex Foxon who we just talked about. We're talking
a Daniel mcgrand now, a Phil Helmuth, A Shawn d.
Nick Shulman, who you know we talked about on a
few episodes ago because he won another gold bracelet. You know,
those those players, those names when they were embracelets, it's
like bang, These are famous with the poker fans out
there like the general poker audience. Other players are famous,
quote unquote famous with players within the community. They are
as well respected as they come. They you know, they
get all the admiration from their peers. And that is
Marco Johnson. You know, that is who he is. I
think the most telling thing about his victory is not
the bracelet himself or the bracelet itself, you know, it's
it's kind of like who shows up on your rail
when you're deep like that, who's in the winner photo?
And and here, you know, I was there towards the
tail end of the night. I did leave before Marcro won,
But you saw the same people that I saw on
the rail in the winner photo. And that was you
got Scott sever you got friend of the Pod David
od b Baker, you got Ray Henson, Phil Sternheim or
Craig Chate, Mark Gregorich. They're all there. They're in the
WINNI photo. They're celebrating. You know, I think that's that's
a little snapshot of how respected Johnson is within poker's
inner circle. And then and then you start seeing the
comments that are coming out on social media. You know,
you got Tony Dunst out there who's saying the ogs, No,
Marco is the man you got Chris Vich giving him
plenty of flowers, saying like, you know, I respect the
hell out of the guy, love the guy. He's great.
Definitely never want to see him at my table, you know,
he's that type of player. You don't want him at
your table, even even as much as you like him.
You don't want Mark at your table because he's that good.
You had Patrick Leonard Pads posting about how nice he is,
how great of a player is also how awesome of
a dad and a family man he is. You know,
so I think generally you really only hear great things
about about Marco, you know, really whoever you talk to.
I've been a little bit cordial with him over the years.
Super nice guy, you don't He's someone who, maybe even
less so than Calvin Anderson, who he just talked about,
who you don't hear about as often because outside of
the summer, like he's just not really around that much.
You know, he might pop in here and there, but
he's basically being a family guy and being a dad
and doing that sort of stuff. The other thing that
I really like about Marco is, and I think I
talked with him maybe last year of the year before
a little bit about this next stuff that I'm about
to say, but it's basically about the evolution of him
and his career as it pertains the poker. You know,
for years he was viewed primarily as a mixed game player,
a mixed game crusher. But after COVID, you know, he
made a conscious effort to modernize and improve his no
limit game. You know, him and I talked specifically about
this sort of thing, and specifically about a course that
I've taken and I've talked about before. Is that Patrick
Leonard's course pads his course on run at once, Pads
on Poker or pads poker. I forget exactly what it's called,
but you know how that course is, you know, it's
it's a few years old now, yes, but I think
it very much still holds up. And I think Marco,
you know, would agree. Five years later, since he really
started putting more time and effort into his nolam At
hold him game. It pays off with a six score
here more than half a million dollars and a Nolanman
hold him bracelet. So you know, I think That's kind
of a great lesson here for poker players, is that
the game, or all the games, you know, it's it's
always going to evolve. Poker is always going to evolve,
and if you want to stay up with the times,
you need to evolve with it. If you want to
be one of the best, you need to evolve with it.
You know, you constantly need to be working, working, working
at it. After the fact, when he spoke with Poker News,
you know, Johnson's his comments reflected that you know that
this wasn't just another bracelet, is kind of the sense
that you got from his words. It was somewhat of
a validation that the work he's put into being better
at this specific variant no limit hold him where he
was once thought of as like only a mixed game
guy like that actually mattered. You know, here's what he
said exactly. I'll just read the quote he said. He
told Poker News. It means a lot. I started playing
no limit twenty twenty five years ago. I've been playing
for a living, and I stopped playing no limit for
a while then after COVID, So the last five years
i've been I've played a lot of No limit and
I really enjoy it. It actually might be one of
my favorite games. So it feels really good to win
a bracelet in a no limit event. So shout out
to Marco for putting the time in, putting the effort in,
and having that all come to fruition to the tune
of more than five hundred thousand dollars and his third
gold bracelet. I also want to do touch on here
second place, Chino Reim, you know, another near gold bracelet
for Chino rem Every time Gino Ream gets deep in
ABSIP event, the conversation resurfaces, and it's going to resurf
in right here with me on the Poker Go podcast.
The guy's got three WPG titles. He's a PCA main
event champion, a massive shout out, massive tournament resume. Of course,
he made the WSIP main Event final table, you know,
many years ago. I can't even remember what you that
was two thousand and eight or two thousand and nine
or whatever the heck it was. You know, he's got
god knows how many PGT titles he's won in the studio.
He's the he was. He's a PGT Plo Series champion.
He won the PGT Mixed Game Series twice, you know,
yet still no bracelet. He's got five runner up finishes
in WSIP events, and I think he has you know,
plenty of other final tables as well for China Rem.
But still it's like the longer it goes, the more
fascinating this story becomes with Chino Rem, you know, especially
when you put it into the whole career arc that
he's had, where now it's kind of the whole comeback
part of the story for Chino Reem, you know, righting
those wrongs, being a better person. He's a dad now,
et cetera, all that sort of stuff, and it feels
like the last thing to achieve for him is a
gold bracelet, and once again he's one spot short. Now,
Johnson did have a big lead coming into heads up play,
so it would have been a lot for Chino to overcome,
but nevertheless, still another runner up finish. Here at the
World Series of Poker for Chino Rem, Finland's Elis Parsonen
won the twenty five k PLO high Roller. He top
day field of four hundred and fifty one entries to
win more than two point one million dollars. It's the
second bracelet for parsonen, I'm gonna have to take a
pause here, guys. Okay, I'll explain it in a second's
family turn. Okay, I'm back. I mean sorry, Like it's
it's past one o'clock in the morning. My wife is
texting me asking me if I'm home. I'm telling her
I'm not home. She's like, well, someone's here. I know
we have somebody staying with us. So I'm like, well,
it's probably that person. Like why don't like, I mean,
I feel bad because I'm here and I can't, Like
I can't go look right, you know, and I want
to go. Look. I I'm you know, I want to
protect the family if I have to. But like she's
also it's like, you have to go look like I can't.
I can't look. I'm here, Like what are you gonna do?
Like what are we doing here? Anyway? So that's happening
back to back to Finland's Greatest Eli's Parson in here
winning the twenty five k PLO high Roller. I mean,
I mean, this guy's just he's the freaking goat PLO player,
isn't he. And it's kind of funny because so he
had he had a previous bracelet twenty twenty one, he
won the five k mixed Nolan had hold him slash
plover five hundred and forty five k. But that's a
half and half event, right, so it's not like a
full PLO event. It's also not a high roller PLO
event like this one is. So in a way, it's
like he kind of maybe needed this, you know, because listen,
if you ask anyone, and we've done this as some content,
we've also just done this as talking points and you know,
on this podcast and whatever. You know, who's the greatest
PLO player in the world in in pok or history?
Elis is in the conversation. He's always a name that's
thrown out there one dred percent of the time. You know.
The only thing that you could ever really say with
him is like, yeah, but how come he doesn't have
a brace? You know, like that's the thing. Well, now
he's got one and it's in the twenty five k
PLO high roller for more than two point one million dollars.
Whenever I have an update, it was the person that
stayed is staying with us, and the person fell asleep
on the couch, so my wife found that out. We
are all safe at home. Good good to know when
whenever Parsonen wins, it feels, you know, it's definitely not
a breakthrough, right, it's just more confirmation of how good
he is. And he's also started playing a lot of
these Nolan hold him hiers and holds his own out there.
I mean, he's a very very good, well rounded player
when it comes to Nolan and hold him and PLO
of course, he's known for PLO and like I said,
whenever there's that debate of who the best PLO player is,
he is always a name that is thrown out there, always, always,
always this event four hundred and fifty one entries twenty
five k BI and it's at the Dobsip. That's some
real freaking juice right there. That's one of the toughest
fields you're gonna find anywhere in poker. And it's gotten
to a point now I think with Elis and even myself,
I find myself thinking this many times, is that you
expect him to start winning some of these these PLO
high roller bracelet events, the twenty five k, the fifty k,
the one hundred k, even like the ten K championship one,
like you just you just expect him to start putting,
you know, not checking those off, like winning them, winning them,
winning them. Now, of course you have to put the
volume in there, which I think he is. He has
done a lot more so more recently in his career.
Elis used to really just play tournaments or sorry, cash
games and not tournaments, and now he's definitely playing a
lot of live tournaments. He's traveling to Triton's, he's he
comes to the PGT PLO series, he's here at the
World Series of Poker, playing all these events, also dabbling
in the the Nolan Holdham high Rollers as well. So
you know, it's really cool to see that he's got
the respect of his peers. They all know how good
he is, and that part of things is always incredibly difficult,
you know, to to win over people, especially in a
game like PLO where there can often be quite a
bit of variance, you know, but as always the cream
rises and Elis is certainly that the second bracelet for
him matters. Of course, you're not just a one bracelet wonder,
you know' that's bigger story that all builds in to
the legacy. So let's say ten years, twenty years, however,
many years from now it is, you know, when people
are discussing who are the best PLO players of all time?
Who are the PLO players that defined a certain era?
Elis Parson, you know, he's always going to be one
of the first names mentioned. He already is one of
the first names mentioned, and that's only going to carry
through as true, especially when you get a result like this,
and it really does, you know, just kind of further
solidify everything in terms of where you stand in the
poker history books. I do want to tie kind of
all four of these winners together. So we got foxin,
we got Calvin Anderson, we got Marco Johnson, and we
got Elis Parson and right, so there are a few
other winners that we want to talk about here, but
these four specifically. It's a connection, but it's not a connection.
What I mean by that is like, none of these
guys winning are flukes like that. They just aren't. Fox
and Is he's a favorite to win a bracelet every
single year. Calvin Anderson probably is as well, you know.
And then you got Marco Johnson. You know, he's always
out here grinding, he's always out here doing great. And
you know, I think I saw something on social media
heading into the summer. Maybe I didn't, and maybe I'm
just thinking that maybe I should have put it on
social media. I can't remember, so forgive me if you're
the person who put this out there. But there was
a question about, you know, give me a basically a
dark horse to win two bracelets this summer. There's also
always the question of giving me a dark horse to
win Player of the year. Marco Johnson's somebody you should
consider in, you know, as a response to both of
those questions, you know, especially now with how much his
Nolan at hold him game has come along and been
brought into the modern era, right, Like, He's someone who
can certainly go off and win two bracelets and be
a dark horse surprising name to win Player the Year. Now,
if you ask a lot of the high stakes community,
you know, oh hey, if you if you say to them, oh, hey,
Marco Johnson won two bracelets, or oh hey, he's in
the top three year, Oh he's leading with the Player
of the Year race, they would be like, oh, well,
that's not really a surprise. It's fricking Marco. He's amazing,
you know. But to a common poker fan, they might
be like, oh, who's that. You know, that's the name.
I haven't really heard about for a while, didn't really
know he was still around. So you know, again, don't
be surprised if you see all the success come from
him this summer. He did win just win this bracelet,
and I believe he's still in as as his cal
in this ten k horse what was you know, as
they got into the money. So we'll keep an eye
on that. You know, these guys, all four of them,
You got Fox and you got Anderson, Johnson, Parson, and
they all represent in poker what is sustained excellence. They
are players who their peers all respect. You know, anyone
respects all of these guys. There are also all these
guys are players you just don't want to have at
your table. We know Fox is an absolute beast. I
don't know if you guys have ever seen or played
with Calvin Anderson, but he plays kind of miss Rocky
esque where he's in like ninety percent of hands, just
like constantly like putting you in awkward spots, you know,
being aggressive. Like it's just he can have almost any
two cards or at least a wider range of the
most so often and he's just very, very tricky to
play against. So you know, these guys are these guys
are the best of the best. We always get the
surprise winners, you know, the no name players that make
a name for themselves on the on the Wisp stage.
We always get that, you know, right, But it's also
cool to always see the truly elite players who just
keep doing it and they keep finding themselves back in
the winner circle time and time and time again. A
couple other winners to go over here, we got Daniel
Aharoni winning the ten K Big O Championship, his first bracelet.
He topped a field of four hundred and fifty six
entries to win eight hundred and sixty one thousand dollars.
Ahrony's a cash game player from New York. He said
he rarely plays tournaments. In fact, he told Poker News
that this is the first tournament he has entered in
two years, and now he's on top of it all,
winning more than eight hundred and sixty thousand dollars. Aaron
Coopan finished in second place in this one. Nick Schulman
had another final table run here. He got fifth in
this one. You had Scott Clemenz who won a bracelet
earlier this summer. He was back at the final table,
finishing eighth here as well Scott Clement's taking him eighty K.
Shoulman hundred ninety seven K. Aaron Coopan for his second
place got five hundred and seventy four thousand dollars, but
the bracelet goes to Daniel Aharoni here in eight hundred
and sixty one thousand dollars. Eddie Blumenthal won the twenty
five hundred dollars oe that's half stud High Low half
Omaha High Low, top the field of five hundred and
eighty seven entries to get two hundred and forty eight
thousand dollars in his pocket. First bracelet for Bloomenthal. Eddie
my guy a few years too late here for our
twenty five K fantasy pick from twenty to twenty two,
back when we were Team Pocket Five's Eddie Bloomenthal here.
You know he's he's someone who's had several close calls
at the World Series of Poker. I think he said
this was his tenth final table, and that's one of
the reasons why we drafted him. You know, he's always
making deep runs, always making final tables. That sort of stuff.
Finally got that monkey off his back to win his
first bracelet and two hundred and forty eight thousand dollars.
In the ten k Mystery Bounty, you had Alex Anton
topping a field of five hundred and fifty eight entries
to win six hundred and seventy eight thousand dollars. Of course,
I'm sure there were some mystery bounty pulls along the
way for Anton that probably padded his his winning quite
a bit. His first bracelet, his largest live score. He
beat Julian Siphon in second place. Josh Reicher finished in
third place. There, Champion Douglas got fourth. Kent Stevens he
won a He won the Poker Masters Showcase on the
PGT last season, I believe, or maybe he won the
Poker Roll Cup Showcase. I think he won the Poker
Roll Cup Showcase earlier this season. I can't remember, but
Kent Stevens here finishing in ninth place for fifty thousand dollars.
Kent Stevens when he won that showcase event came out
of nowhere, like we didn't know who he was, came
out and where won the tournament started firing a few
more PGT events. He did dip in for some USPO
stuff here and there. Okay, great, you know, now he's
been here a ton at the World Series of Poker
firing away. You know, I didn't know if you know,
maybe okay, that was kind of his shot for those
early PGT stuff and we wouldn't see too much of
him since. But that has not been the case. Kent
has been absolutely firing and here he gets final table
run and a fifty thousand dollars score and then rounding
out the winners that we're going to talk about on
this episode of the pod, we got the one K
Seniors Championship winner, Homan Mohammadi, topping a field of seven thousand,
five hundred and thirty eight entries, winning six hundred and
sixty thousand dollars. Mohammadi's from North Vancouver, Canada. He told
Poker News after he won this one, it's like a
dream come true. Absolutely, I've been very close multiple times,
but going through this field plus but going through this
field and trying to keep the flag up, it just
feels amazing some of those close calls. Just looking at
Mohammadi's hend In Moob he had in twenty seventeen, a
second second place finish in a sixteen hundred dollars championship
event at the Win during the summer so it was
part of the Win Summer Classic. He had two hundred
and eleven thousand dollars score there. He had a third
place finish in a WSP circuit event in Richmond in Canada.
I think that's also in Vancouver, one hundred and ten
thousand dollars there. So you know he's had he's had
some big scores on on his resume. Of course, nothing
you know, comes close to this. You know, you get
the six hundred and sixty thousand dollars, you get the
gold bracelet, so you know, great for him, big big
rail he had on his side of things. They really
did embrace him when that final river card hit and
he won the bracelet. So good for home on Mohammadi.
And that's it. That's the pod. I know. We didn't
get fully caught up with everything. We still got we
got this ten k horse playing down the three K
six Max Nolam and hold him, which a wild story
from that where a gentleman sat down to play started started.
I I might as well talk about this he started,
he started, He just lit up a cigarette at the table.
I saw it was funny. I'm browsing on social media.
I see a post from Nick Shulman. It says a
gentleman in this three K six Max went for the
very rarely seen basically unprecedented move of simply lighting up
a cigarette and casually enjoying it until, of course being
removed from the tournament. Lol. My so Shaulmann puts that
on Twitter, right when I get a text message from
my friend Ronnie Barto who says, a drunk Brazilian animal
just lit a cigarette in the middle of the three
K floor. Security came over, he just kept on smoking
it at the table while trying to talk to him.
They made him get up out of his seat. He
took all of his chips and just stuffed him in
his pocket. And then then you know, security in the
flour like you got to give the chips back, and
then he just kept pulling chips out. I guess, like,
you know, handful by handful to give him back. There's
a video of this, you know, I know Ronnie put
something on his story. I think the WSP account has
an official video of what happened. There. I mean, it
was it looked like madness out there. I mean, we're
at the halfway point of the World Series of Poker,
the Brazilians are winning World Cup games, and this dude
is just sitting down and just ripping a sick, just
just ripping it. Like they're like in the video, like
they're they're yelling at him, and he's just he's just
still going like he's just enjoying, enjoying his life. I mean,
that's that's one of the most expensive cigarettes ever because
it probably cost that gentleman three thousand dollars. But yeah, yeah,
that had that that happened. I guess I should give
another shout out here, not that that was necessarily a
shout out, but some of the people that I've been
meeting around the world Treez of Poker that I've yet
the shout out here on the podcast. But I should
also get caught up with this. We got Jared Villa Reale.
He came over to me back when I played the
seventeen hundred dollars US Circuit Championship. He was a few
tables over. He came over to me wished me good luck.
That was in level two of that tournament. Thank you,
Jared appreciated. Hopefully you have plenty of luck this summer
as well. Justin Butt saw me on Break of the
Monsters Act. He said, I've emailed you before, just wanted
to introduce myself in person. So Justin, what's up my
man Ryan, who I met last year, and he said,
this year, Ryan, I don't I gotta look up. I
think I kind of look up how you did in
the Monsters Ack. I know you made Day two with me.
My Day two sucked. I think you were still in
when I busted. But Ryan said that he's playing the
main event for the first time with his son turning
twenty one this year, so that's great. We got Jim
from Seattle who spawned seven big blinds back up into
a starting stack at reg Close that was also in
the Monster Stack. I believe, so good on Jim. Now
I met this guy Sean from Cali. Okay, I mean this,
This guy gave me a story, so it wasn't as
crazy as the guy in the All Lakers outfit that
was talking about the hooker and all that sort of stuff.
But Sean from Calli he's driving in to play here
at the World Series of poker, he said, a bit
of ways outside of Las Vegas. Before he gets into
Las Vegas, his car breaks down. Okay, so he calls
and he gets it towed. If I remember correctly, he
told me he was staying either at Horse Reparis. So
he's thinking, like where do I get it toad. Well,
across the street from Horseshoe. Outside there's a restaurant and
like a parking lot Batista's Batista's hole in the wall.
So he he says, he tells them, okay, let's have
a toad there, because you can't really have like a
tow truck bring your car into like the parking garage
at Horseshoe, especially with the gates and everything like that.
So while he gets that, he gets it set up
where he goes to the security at Batista's because they
have security patrolling outside. I said, listen, I just need
to put my car here for like half an hour.
I need to go check into the hotel and get
that squared away, and then I'm gonna come back over
here and I'm gonna sort the situation with the car. Okay.
Security guard tells him, okay, great, He goes, he gets
over to his hotel so that he can check in.
He comes back and gone. He was gone for like
fifteen minutes. The car is already towed out of Batistas.
I mean, first of all, security people like, if you're
gonna tell the guy you're gonna let him do that,
then just let him do it, like come me, come on.
So that's what happened to Sean. So he he was
dealing with that whole situation. Hopefully, you know, things turn
in his favor, he gets a little bit more good
luck in some of the tournaments that he's playing, because
that sucks when you got to deal with that. You know,
you're coming in from out of town. The first issue,
the car breaks down, that's super annoying and frustrating. Second
issue is that you know, you think you're doing the
right thing getting this all situated. You check with the
security guard. You don't just leave it there on your
own accord whatever, and then they go and do something
like that. So hopefully the cards treat you well and
repay you for that one. Sean shout out to Matt
from Boise, Idaho who caught up with me. I think
it was right outside the cash game room here. You
got Jeff Schneider. I played with him in the Turbo Bounty.
It's funny because like you play with some people and
then they don't they don't like say anything to you
until like later on. But anyway, play with Jeff. He
was the one who was like, he's like, so, are
you still doing the podcast? I said, yeah, I'm doing it,
you know, just about every day. And then he's like, oh,
I haven't seen it or whatever. I said. So I
pulled up my phone just to make sure that it
was there. I said, what do you what do you use?
He's like, I forget what he said, but you know,
I looked at it and I was like, yeah, it's
it's there, you know. He said, oh, but you hadn't
done it for a while before the World Series, right,
I said, yeah, you know, we we did take a
lot of time off, so that's probably why, you know,
you forgot about it. But we are back, you know,
pretty much every day, or at least every day that
I can. And then, you know, just earlier tonight, shout
out to my guy Andrew de Fayo. He said he
bagged again in the Million Maker, so he must have
bagged Day one A and then bagged Day one B,
or maybe he bagged Day one B and bag Day
one C today. I can't remember exactly, but Andrew. Andrew's
funny because every time I see him, and I've probably
seen Andrew I don't know, half a dozen times now,
you know. I've seen him at the World Series several times,
many different years. I've seen him at the wind at
different times, and every time he comes up to me,
he's like, what's up, Donnie, Andrew d FAYO. He always
always just introduces himself. I had I had to check
you on, and Andrew, you know, I had to be like, listen, man,
I know your name by now. I know I'm bad
with most names, I really am, but you specifically Andrew,
because you tell me every single time your name is Andrew. DeFeo.
I know your name. Okay, Love you man. Hopefully hope
the best for you on day two here in the Millionmaker.
I hope it goes better than the first Day two
went for you. Hope you make a run in that thing.
All right, That's all I got. I'm gonna go check
back in on the Seawan Dee match versus Joey Coodin.
We'll see what's going on there. And then probably get
out of here for the night. I'm supposed to play
the Millionmaker on Saturday. I kind of feel like crap,
so I might end up skipping it. I don't like
to put my money at risk. I don't like to
put my investors money at risk when I'm not feeling
up to it, So we'll see how that goes. I
was hoping to get a decent amount of sleep tonight,
but I don't know if that's gonna be in the card,
so we'll see how it goes. As always, I appreciate
you guys for listening. This has been the Poker Gol podcast.
My name is Donnie Peters, and I will talk to
you next time. It express