Bonomo takes down €100,000 buy-in tournament at EPT Grand Final

Following a star-studded final table, American Justin Bonomo outplayed some of the best poker players in the world to take down the €100,000 Super High Roller at the PokerStars and Monte-Carlo®Casino European Poker Tour Grand Final and take the huge first prize of €1,640,000.

The 26-year-old Bonomo, who lives in Canada, but originally from hails from Washington D.C., beat a 38-strong field to take the prize – the biggest single cash prize in a career that has won him nearly $5 million in live tournaments.

Prior to winning the opening event of this season’s EPT Grand Final, which was filmed for television, Bonomo already had nine cashes of six figures or more in live tournaments. His talents first came to light in the very first year of the EPT when he finished fourth at EPT Deauville in France in January 2005. At the time, he was the youngest ever player to make a televised final table, aged just 19.

Bonomo, who beat EPT Season 6 Grand Final High Roller winner Tobias Reinkemeier heads-up to take the title, said: “To be honest, it hasn’t sunk in yet but I’m sure if you ask me tomorrow, I’ll be on top of the world. I talked to a friend before the final and he gave me a tip, saying: ‘Just don’t lose a hand’. So I took his advice, and didn’t lose a hand for two days.”
Bonomo added: "This is so much more money than I've ever won in a poker tournament before." His biggest cash before yesterday was fifth in the 2009 World Series of Poker's $40,000 No-Limit Hold'em event for just over $400,000.

At the start of the eight-man final yesterday, Bonomo held nearly 40% of the chips in play. He never lost the lead and eliminated five players en route to victory.

A total of 38 players entered the €100k Super High Roller which, with seven reloads (including one from Bonomo), created a total prize pool of €4,432,500. The field included Team PokerStars Pro and PokerStars Caribbean Adventure $100k Super High Roller winner Viktor “Isildur1” Blom, as well as EPT San Remo champion Jason Mercier, 2010 world champion Jonathan Duhamel, Scott Seiver, David Sands, Dan Shak, Tony G, Artem Litvinov, Mike "Timex" McDonald, Phil Ivey, Erik Seidel, Gus Hansen, businessman Bill Perkins and Sorel Mizzi.

Team PokerStars Pro and four-time High Roller champion Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier finished third for €621,000 while his fellow team-mate, Canadian superstar Daniel Negreanu, “scraped” into the money to bag €310,000.

1. Justin Bonomo, USA, €1,640,000
2. Tobias Reinkemeier, Germany, €1,064,000
3. Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier, France, €621,000
4. Patrik Antonius, Finland, €443,000
5. Masa Kagawa, Japan, €354,500
6. Daniel Negreanu, Canada, Team PokerStars Pro, €310,000

He's also chipleader right now at the final table of the high roller 25K event. Nice suckout against ivey for FT bubble:

Action folded to Justin Bonomo in the cutoff seat and he raised to 40,000. Phil Ivey was in the small blind and three-bet to 110,000 when play got over to him. Bonomo opted to flat-call and take a flop in position.

The flop came down {K-Diamonds}{7-Spades}{5-Spades} and Ivey fired another 110,000 at the pot. Bonomo made the call and the dealer placed the {3-Diamonds} out on the turn. Ivey bet another 200,000 and this time Bonomo wanted to play for more. He raised all in and Ivey quickly called.

Ivey turned over the {K-Diamonds}{K-Clubs} for top set of kings. Bonomo tabled the {K-Spades}{Q-Spades} for top pair and a flush draw. The river completed the board with the {J-Spades} and gave Bonomo the winning flush. He had the most chips between the two and eliminated Ivey on the final table bubble.

Sick players in the high roller FT. I'd like to see the video if there is one.

read : Bono Bonomo takes down ..
at first glance