Nick Schulman claimed the throne in the Poker Masters’ opening No-Limit Hold’em poker event after topping a field of 51. The player pocketed the life-changing money of $918,000 and appeared on top of the leadership board in the first out of five tournaments – 4 $50K No-Limit Hold’em and the closing $100,000 freezeout for the Poker Masters Purple Jacket™.
The starting Poker Masters event kicked off this Wednesday at the ARIA. The cards hit the air with 51 poker hopefuls, competing for a lion’s share of the $2,550,000 prize pool. After the hours-long game, the first day of the event left only 7 poker survivors with Matt Hyman as the chip-lead. The other players, who managed to qualify for the next day were Nick Schulman, Adrian Mateos, Dominik Nitsche, Stefan Schillhabel, Koray Aldemir, and Steffen Sontheimer. They were all guaranteed at least $127,500 cash prize. Here, it is interesting to note that the Canadian poker guru Daniel Negreanu was eliminated in 8th position, banking $102,000 for his deep run in the event. He missed the final table by a hair, but at least he cashed a money prize.
All remained poker players were fighting tooth and nail to win the event, and there is a good reason for that: besides the solid cash prize, the winner was to take the early lead in the Poker Masters and have a good advantage in the upcoming 4 Poker Masters events.
Decisive Moments
When the final table of 7 was formed, with Matt Hyman occupying the chip-lead position. The first to leave the final table was the Spanish player Adrian Mateos with $127,500 more in his bank account. Following his elimination, one by one all the German players left the final table in a row. The first was Koray Aldemir (in 6th place), Dominik Nitsche (in 5th place), Steffen Sontheimer (in 4th place) and Stefan Schillhabel (in 3rd place).
This brought the event into heads-up play between the two American players Nick Schulman and Matt Hyman. The 2-handed action saw the players constantly transferring the chip-lead position between each other. In the end, the blinds and antes led the game to its final decisive hand. By this time, it was Schulman, who was holding the chip-lead position. All chips were pushed into the center of the table. Hyman tabled [Ad][8d] against Schulman’s [As][Kh]. The flop came [QX][7d][5d], giving him hope for a flush. But the deck decided to give Schulman the advantage over his opponent, as the dealer turned [5s] and [Ac] came on the river to bring the event to a close. It was Schulman, who pocketed the top cash prize and the title, but Hyman was also generously rewarded with $561,000 in cash.
