With live poker returning, and online events not going away, there’s a ton of action to keep up with. Let us know how we’re doing, and about winners we might be overlooking, by emailing tips@cardschat.com. This week we saw a big name from the past reemerging online, a relative newcomer from South Korea showing the poker community he’s the real deal, a New Zealand amateur reminding us it’s not just a game for pros, and a French grinder arguing that sometimes, even in the smaller events, it is.
Read more below about some notable victories that caught our attention at CardsChat News for the week ending Saturday, March 20, 2021:
Isaac Baron
‘westmenloAA’
Super Millions
GGPoker
$412,449
Form is temporary, but class is permanent. Just ask Baron, who became only the fourth player to win GGPoker’s weekly $10K showdown twice. The American outlasted a field of 203 on Sunday, beating a tough final table that included the likes of 2020 WSOP Main Event champ Damian Salas. Baron was one of the game’s original MTT stars, banking more than $1 million in tournament winnings and being named CardPlayer Magazine’s Online Player of the Year in 2007. He also had early live success on the European Poker Tour and in WPT events in Europe when he was still too young to compete in US casinos. Since then, he’s had plenty of middling success in live action, booking more than $6.5 million in tournament earnings (and winning a WSOP bracelet in 2019). Now 33, he appears to be returning as a real online force.
Sung Joo ‘Arte’ Hyun
Wynn Spring Classic Championship
Las Vegas
$323,409
South Korean poker streamer Sung Joo Hyun, known as “ArtePoker” in social media circles, is showing he can win both live and online, and his paydays keep growing. The up-and-coming pro scored his first tournament victory winning a 2020 WSOP online bracelet this summer in a $500 NLH Deepstack for $161K. Then, in February, he took down a WPT DeepStacks title at the Venetian for $208K. This win at the Wynn came in a $3,500 tournament that attracted 614 entrants. Sung grinded out a grueling 15-hour session on Tuesday before chopping heads-up with Matthias Auer, an Austrian who was one of six international players at the final table. The two were ready to call it quits for an even split and, because Sung had the larger chip stack, he took home the trophy (and got his smizing mug in CardsChat’s BWOW again). Sung plays online at GGPoker and PokerStars (as “KoreanMonkey”), and has a growing audience following his mostly Korean language (with English subtitles) YouTube channel.
Dylan Rowe
WPT500 Main Event
Partypoker
$181,544
New Zealander Rowe may have had less than $11K in live tournament earnings going into the final day of this $530 event on Tuesday, but he played like a seasoned pro. He made the right bets at the right time and got lucky when necessary. He was almost booted in the early stages of the final table after calling two all-ins with A♣K♣. One opponent had pocket kings, and the short stack got it in with queens and flopped quads. But a third club on the river gave Rowe the flush and a side pot, a lucky break he didn’t waste. As established pros like Brandon Adams fell in his wake, Rowe topped the 2,422-entrant field to collect his first WPT main event title.
Tom Delaine
High Roller Big Game
Partypoker
$81,261
The French pro continued his online poker tournament success with a victory in the $265 buy-in, $300,000 guaranteed Partypoker tournament. After cashing in 11 WSOP Online Bracelet events last summer, including a seventh-place finish in the $400 Colossus ($79,760), he got over the hump and shipped The High Roller Big Game. The final table included top high-stakes pros such as Daniel Dvoress (third place), who has been on a tear recently, and Timothy Adams (eighth place). On the final hand, Delaine’s pocket queens held up against Thomas Muehloecker’s A-2 as the board ran out 5-2-5-7-8.
