High Roller: Brandon Adams Dominates to Win High Roller

2018 Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown
Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino
Hollywood, Florida
$1,000,000 Guaranteed
$25,500 High Roller (Re-Entry)
Entries: 40
Prize Pool: $1,000,000
April 15-16, 2018

Brandon Adams, High Roller Champion

High Roller events are always exciting when they appear on the schedule. The $25,500 buy-in Poker Showdown version featured a $1 Million Guarantee and it attracted some of the most talented players in the poker world. Brandon Adams entered the game late and ran strong from start to finish to win the title for $370,000.

The tournament drew 40 entries to put exactly $1,000,000 up for grabs. The last six spots paid out but they had to do a lot of work to get there.

The field included tough competition that included Chance Kornuth, Shaun Deeb, Will “The Thrill” Failla, Jonathan Little, James Calderaro, and three-time WPT Champions Club member Darren Elias among the talented field.

Adams was one of the last players to join the field and he immediately began trying to build a stack in anticipation of registration closing after dinner. He was able triple his starting stack and set himself up well for the deep run.

“I was planning on playing those two hours before dinner pretty fast and if it didn’t go well I was going to rebuy.” Adams commented.

“I had one key hand right before the dinner break. I check-raise bluffed the flop with a gutshot that got there on the turn against a made hand. That was pretty huge for the tournament.” he continued. “That was a crucial hand because I bluffed and got there. He had a big hand, I make the nuts on the turn and I’m up to 300,000 before dinner.”

The High Roller formed the nine-handed final table before the last break of the day and seven players were still in the game, with six getting paid, when they wrapped up for the night.

“In the two hours after dinner, it was just small things going the right way,” Adams said about his Day 1 late run. “It felt like nothing was going wrong. I made a few big bluffs that worked. When I was all in, I was winning.”

Adams had a commanding chip lead for the Day 2 final table return and carried it throughout the afternoon. Larry Greenberg was eliminated on the money bubble followed by Deeb. Ajay Chabra had a great run throughout the two days but fell short at the hands of Adams.

Barry Hutter went out in third place to set up the battle for the title between Adams and online poker monster Pablo Fernandez. Adams had a big lead to start heads-up play and extended it before finishing it off.

It took less than 30 minutes of heads-up action for Adams to dispatch Fernandez and pick up another high roller title. It was a dominant performance over the two days of the tournament and it was a well-earned victory.

“It feels great. I’ve never really had a tournament where things went the smoothly from the beginning.” Adams said of his big performance. “It feels good to run that unbelievably well.”

Congratulations to Brandon and all the players for another great High Roller tournament.

High Roller results:

1st: Brandon Adams – $370,000
2nd: Pablo Fernandez – $240,000
3rd: Barry Hutter – $150,000
4th: Ajay Chabra – $105,000
5th: Darren Elias – $75,000
6th: Shaun Deeb – $60,000