Biggest Live Poker Winners of 2017

The world of live tournament poker never fails to offer excitement to both those playing and those deriving pleasure from following action at the tables as spectators. Needless to say, the fact that poker offers players the chance to win life-changing amounts of money contributes to the game’s global popularity.

It can be said that interest in live poker grew in 2017 and the introduction of new tournaments, with those featuring larger prize pools, certainly boosted that growth.

Although it is impossible to tell how much money has been awarded to live tournament participants over the past twelve months, it can be seen quite easily who the most profitable players of the year were. Here is a quick look at these players as well as some highlights from the development of their poker careers in 2017.

Bryn Kenney – $8,505,898

Winning over $8.5 million this year, Kenney even outpassed the WSOP Main Event Champion, Scott Blumstein. It can be said that 2017 was actually Kenney’s most successful year in terms of money earned from live tournaments.

Only in January, the player managed to add more than $1.5 million from six in-the-money finishes from the inaugural edition of the PokerStars Championship Bahamas. A highlight from his performance during the successor of the particularly popular PokerStars Caribbean Adventure was the fact that he took down two high roller events.

He first emerged the victor from the $50,000 No-Limit Hold’em for a first-place prize of $969,075. Days later he also won the $25,500 No-Limit Hold’em Shot Clock, good for $392,876.

It can be said that high rollers were Kenney’s main focus throughout the year. Aside from the above-mentioned two, the player topped the fields of three more such events and cashed in quite a lot more.

In April, Kenney won a $25,000 High Roller at Aria Casino in Las Vegas for $300,000. Only several days later, he flew to Monte Carlo, where he beat the field of the €100,000 Super High Roller that took place as part of the PokerStars Championship. His victory secured him with his largest live cash of €1,784,500.

Scott Blumstein – $8,174,347

Blumstein became this year’s WSOP $10,000 Main Event champion. The player collected $8.15 million for remaining the last man standing from a field of 7,221 entries. Needless to say, this was his largest-ever cash.

The New Jersey-based player cashed in several other events before and after this year’s edition of the WSOP World Championship, but his payouts from these were mostly three- and four-figure ones.

Here it is interesting to note that his victory at the Main Event rocketed him in top five of his home state’s most profitable players, with Phil Ivey, Dan Smith, Thomas Marchese, and Chris Klodnicki being the only four people to have won more than him in live tournaments.

Christoph Vogelsang – $7,665,247

A prominent trend from this year was German poker professionals winning a great number of the higher buy-in tournaments to have taken place over the globe in the past twelve months. This is why it is not a surprise that the top five of the 2017’s live tournament poker money list is comprised namely of Germans.

Christoph Vogelsang was the most profitable German high roller this year. The player became this year’s Aria Super High Roller Bowl winner, claiming the amount of $6 million for beating 55 fellow players.

The player also finished sixth in the WSOP Europe €111,111 High Roller for ONE DROP, good for €606,694. Another notable event from his career this year was his victory in a $25,000 High Roller at Aria. The player collected $261,376 for his performance in that particular tournament.

Steffen Sontheimer – $7,052,322

Sontheimer was another German player to make quite some headlines this year. It can be said that his lucky streak began in May when he finished runner-up to his fellow countryman Christian Christner in a $100,000 Aria Super High Roller. Sontheimer collected $1,223,264 from that event.

In July, he took down a €25,200 Super High Roller that took place within the Poker EM 2017 festival in Velden, Austria. His prize from the event amounted to €430,000.

In September, Sontheimer became the star of Aria Casino’s inaugural Poker Masters High Roller Series. The high roller festival included five tournaments, and the young German cashed in four of them, finishing first in two of them. He took down a $50,000 buy-in and a $100,000 buy-in event, scooping payouts of $900,000 and $1,512,000, respectively. He also finished fourth and fifth in two other $50,000 buy-in events within the festival, cashing $204,000 and $117,000 from those. His performance throughout the Poker Masters secured him with the purple jacket.

Fedor Holz – $6,380,187

Fedor Holz, the leader of Germany’s all-time money leaderboard, also had quite a profitable year. Although the player announced that he was retiring from professional poker in 2016, we still got to see a lot of him during 2017.

The player won several high roller tournaments over the course of the year, including the HK$250,000 No-Limit Hold’em during the Triton Super High Roller Series in Budva, Montenegro. His share of the prize pool totaled $444,893.

It is also interesting to note that he won two $50,000 Super High Roller events at Aria in two consecutive days back in May. He received $330,660 for winning the first and $417,600 for taking down the second.

While Holz may have failed to improve his performance from last year, when he collected more than $16 million from winning most of the major tournaments that took place, the player still had quite a good year in 2017, particularly when bearing in mind that he is a retiree after all.

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