Bill Klein and Jake Schindler came up big this weekend at Aria Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, each winning a high-roller poker tournament. The former took down a $25k on Friday, and the latter shipped another $25k on Saturday.
Although he won a high roller against some tough competition for $324,000, that wasn’t even Klein’s greatest accomplishment of the day. According to Jason Koon, who tweeted out the story, Klein played a round of golf at Las Vegas’ famous Shadow Creek Golf Course earlier in the day. During that round, the 73-year-old businessman sank a hole-in-one, a once-in-a-lifetime shot for most golfers.
https://twitter.com/JasonKoon/status/1391156232807878656?s=20
Afterward, he made the 15-minute drive to the Strip for some high-stakes poker. The cancer survivor and amateur poker player beat out a field of 36 players, many of whom are among the best players in the world, including Daniel Negreanu, the recently vaccinated GGPoker ambassador who is just now getting back into the live tournament grind following his year-long quarantine.
Six players split up the $900,000 prize pool, with Klein taking the largest share ($324,000). Klein won a heads-up match against Seth Davies, who recently won a $25,000 GGPoker Spring Festival online high roller for nearly $1 million. Davies received $216,000 for second place and now has more than $9 million in live tournament cashes.
Ali Imsirovic took third place ($144,000), Sean Winter busted in fourth place ($90,000), Alex Foxen was the fifth-place finisher ($72,000), and Jake Schindler was eliminated in sixth place ($54,000).
Impressive weekend for Schindler
Schindler’s performance on Friday wasn’t quite good enough to outlast Klein and four other talented players. But he performed at an even higher level on Saturday in another $25,000 buy-in event, taking down the title this time around. The high-stakes pro with nearly $26 million in live tournament cashes added another $310,500 to his already impressive poker tournament resume.
Schindler won a heads-up match for the title against Eric Worre, who earned $189,000. Negreanu, who held a big stack for much of the day, took third place for $108,000, his first live tournament cash since a 62nd-place finish in the December 2019 WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic.
Johan Guilbert, a French pro, was the first to go out after the money bubble burst, receiving $67,500 for fourth place out of 27 entries.
Schindler received 186 points toward the 2021 PokerGO Tour, a new points-based high-roller poker tour. Klein earned 194 points for winning Friday’s event.
