Photo Masters: Back-to-Backs and Side Bet Implications

PokerGO is your home for everything and anything Poker Masters. Feature and final table streams from the highest stakes week of the years will give fans from around the world the opportunity to watch the world’s best players compete for the Poker Masters Purple Jacket™. “Photo Masters” will recap each day’s action with shots from the floor, helping to tell the Poker Masters story throughout the series.

To win the Poker Masters Purple Jacket, players will need to be consistent through the five-event high stakes series and through two $50,000 events, no one has been more consistent than Steffen Sontheimer. The German made back-to-back final tables to start the series, notching a 4^th place finish in the opening event and then a win in Event #2, to put himself atop the Poker Masters Purple Jacket standings. So far, Sontheimer is the only player to eclipse seven-figures of Poker Masters earnings but with three events still to play out, he better not get too comfortable next to the Purple Jacket.

Sontheimer went back-to-back in the first two events and Bryn Kenney repeated that feat in Event #2 and Event #3. The New Yorker notched a 7^th place result at yesterday’s $50,000 final table but Kenney isn’t coming back at the bottom of the chip counts today. Instead, he’s in the middle of the pack and while he has some tough competitors above him, including Dan Smith and Doug Polk with massive stacks, an Event #3 victory would move Kenney over $1 million in Poker Masters earnings, keep him atop the GPI Player of the Year rankings, and put him within touching distance of Steffen Sontheimer.

Another player that went back-to-back to open the Poker Masters series, with slightly less profitable finishes, was Adrian Mateos. The Spaniard finished 7^th in Event #1 and then 6^th in Event #2, for just over $275,000 of total earnings. Mateos needs to get back to another final table, and likely win, for a serious chance to compete for the Purple Jacket, but don’t count out his countryman just yet. Sergio Aido is opening his Poker Masters account today and with two players carrying the Spanish flag to three-straight Poker Masters final tables, neither should be underestimated heading to the back-half of the series.

Daniel Negreanu’s Poker Masters Purple Jacket must-win bets drew all sorts of attention before the series started and while Negreanu notched a cash in the opening $50,000 prelim, he has been quiet since. Doug Polk, pictured top, wasn’t exactly making noise either, but that should all change today. Polk was one of the first players to take Negreanu up on his $50,000 side bet and the Upswing Poker talisman bet himself, Dan Smith and Jake Schindler. Those three players come into the Event #3 final table with huge leads on the rest of the field and if any of them can find the winner’s circle today, the Purple Jacket sweat will be on.