Seth Davies Wins Super High Roller Bowl IX for $3,206,000

The Super High Roller Bowl IX concluded at the Merit Royal Diamond Hotel & Spa in North Cyprus, with Seth Davies winning $3,206,000 in prize money and claiming his second PGT title of the season.

This victory was the largest career score for Davies, topping his $1,078,347 score for finishing runner-up in the 2023 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure $100k Super High Roller. Davies now has amassed more than $29,268,000 in lifetime tournament earnings, and according to The Hendon Mob, he now sits 26th on the All-Time Money List, having vaulted over Scott Seiver, Brian Rast, Antonio Esfandiari, Michael Watson, Danny Tang, and Daniel Colman.

The 24-entrant field in Super High Roller Bowl IX was down to the final four players who returned for Day 3. Spaniard Juan Pardo held the chip lead ahead of Davies, Leonard Maue was third overall, and Jeremy Ausmus was the short stack.

Ausmus won the first two hands off Maue to push the German down to the bottom of the leaderboard. Pardo got funky with nine-deuce-suited, and then lost a few more pots to relinquish the chip lead to Davies. Pardo then flopped bottom set against Ausmus' top pair, which went runner-runner into a flush. Ausmus checked the river, Pardo bet enough to put Ausmus all-in, and the American called and doubled to see the top three chips closely grouped together.

Maue was down to 11 big blinds, and he reraised all-in with ace-jack as Davies called the all-in with pocket jacks. The board bricked out ten-high, and Maue was eliminated in fourth place for $750,000 in prize money. Davies now sat with 2.8 million ahead of Ausmus' 2.25 million and Pardo's 2.1 million.

Davies then bet-raised the turn with a straight draw to prompt a Pardo fold, and Davies was now sitting with nearly half the chips in play. As Pardo and Ausmus were dueling for second place on the leaderboard, it would be the Spaniard that would move into second place after winning a pot with two pair from Ausmus, and then one with pocket tens from Davies.

After some back-and-forth between all three players, Davies made a big move to separate himself when he picked off Pardo's queen-high bluff with second pair to sit with 4.26 million as Pardo and Ausmus had 2.9 million combined. Ausmus sank down to under 14 big blinds before he called all-in from the big blind with king-nine to be against the ace-six of Pardo, who shoved from the small blind. Both an ace and king fell on the flop, but no additional help came for Ausmus, and he was out in third place for $1,200,000 in prize money - his third-largest career score.

Davies began heads-up play with a 4.26 million to 2.94 million lead over Pardo, and immediately increased that on the first hand after turning second pair and pushing Pardo's nine-high out on the river. The second hand of heads-up play would also be the last as Davies raised his button with eight-seven and Pardo defended with four-three. After the flop checked through, Davies nailed the nut straight on the turn while Pardo picked up a meaningless straight draw of his own. Pardo bet and Davies called as Pardo drilled his straight on the river. Pardo bet out nearly half his chip stack before Davies moved all-in. Pardo used several time extensions before calling all-in, only to be shown the nut straight of Davies. Pardo was eliminated in second place and collected $1,900,000 in prize money. His career-largest score also thrust him ahead of Carlos Mortensen to move into third on Spain's All-Time Money List behind Adrian Mateos and Sergio Aido. 

Davies now joins a list of Super High Roller Bowl winners that include Brian Rast, Rainer Kempe, Christoph Vogelsang, Justin Bonomo, Isaac Haxton, Cary Katz, Daniel Dvoress, Timothy Adams, Wiktor Malinowski, Michael Addamo, and Daniel Negreanu. 

Super High Roller Bowl IX Results

After his victory, Seth Davies is 13th on the PGT leaderboard with 1,325 PGT points from his two victories and seven cashes this season. Spaniard Juan Pardo enters the PGT leaderboard for the first time in 2024, with the 450 PGT points he earned for finishing runner-up pushing him to 98th on the PGT leaderboard. Jeremy Ausmus dethrones Michael Rocco and claims the top spot on the PGT leaderboard for the first time. Ausmus has amassed  2,160 PGT points from 18 cashes and $5,169,576 in PGT earnings for 2024. Leonard Maue sits 117th on the PGT leaderboard with 365 PGT points from three cashes.

PGT Leaderboard Top 10 

These are the leaderboard standings as of Sunday, August 25, 2024. The complete and current PGT leaderboard is at pgt.com/leaderboard.

Upcoming on the PGT schedule is the 2024 Poker Masters from September 10 to 19. The series will be entirely No-Limit Hold'em tournaments with buy-ins ranging from $5,100 to $25,200. The player that accumulates the most PGT points throughout the series will be awarded the Poker Masters Purple Jacket and earn a $25,000 PGT Passport. Pot-Limit Omaha will dominate October on the PGT schedule with the PGT PLO Series II running from October 14 to 22, and Super High Roller Bowl: $100k Pot-Limit Omaha running from October 24-26. Two new PGT series will debut in November, with one being a No-Limit Hold'em bounty series at the PokerGO Studio, while the other will be a Pot-Limit Omaha series at Champions Club in Houston, Texas. More information will be made available shortly.

For complete PGT schedule information, check out pgt.com/schedule.

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