Shawn Daniels Wins Venetian High Roller Poker Tournament For $175,500

Shawn Daniels had quite a profitable 48 hours playing high stakes tournament poker this week. The Placerville, California native finished second from 77 entries in the Venetian High Roller $10,000 buy-in no-limit hold’em event held on Thursday, May 27, cashing for $146,300. The following day he improved on that runner-up showing by emerging victorious in another $10,000 buy-in high roller, beating out the 65-entry field to win another $175,500. The $321,800 he earned from this pair of podium finishes brought his career live tournament earnings to $1.3 million.

In addition to the title and the money, Daniels was also awarded 360 Card Player Player of the Year points for this latest win. Combined with the 350, and the points he had earned at two final tables earlier in the year, Daniels now has 1,250 total points, putting him in 28th place in the 2021 POY race sponsored by Global Poker.

This event is part of the first-ever season of the PokerGO Tour. Daniels accumulated 322 rankings points for the two with his two strong finishes in these high roller events. He now sits in 12th place on the PokerGO Tour Leaderboard, which tracks results in high-stakes tournaments with buy-ins of $10,000 or higher throughout the year.

This single-day tournament kicked off at The Venetian Poker Room at 2 p.m. local time and continued until Daniels had won the final hand at nearly 3:30 a.m. The turnout of 65 entries saw a $650,000 prize pool paid out among the top 10 finishers, with
German poker pro Manig Loeser eliminated on the money bubble.

John Riordan (10th – $19,500) and Sean Winter (9th – $26,000) were eliminated soon after, setting up the final table of eight with Spain’s Vicent Bosca in the lead. Shannon Shorr, who finished fourth in the high roller a day earlier, was the first to hit the rail. He had come into the final table with just a few big blinds. He got all-in with 65 and flopped flush and straight draws in a multi-way pot, but was unable to improve further and was sent home in eighth place ($26,000).

Seth Davies was the next to be eliminated, with his pocket nines running into the pocket kings of Cary Katz. The superior pair held up and Davies settle for $32,500.

While Bosca had entered the final table with the lead, he doubled up John Morgan during six-handed play to fall to the bottom of the chip counts. He ultimately got his last handful of blinds all-in with Q-9 against the 43 of Daniels in the big blind. Daniels rivered a straight to knockout Bosca in sixth place ($39,000).

Cary Katz lost a preflop race with A9 against the pocket sixes of Sergi Reixach to be sent home with $52,000 as the fifth-place finisher. Not long after that Morgan and Daniels clashed in a massive pot. The two got all-in on a J98 flop with Daniels holding J10 for top pair and a straight draw, while Morgan had 65 for a flush draw. The Q turn and Jriver saw Daniels win the pot with trip jacks, eliminating Morgan in fourth place.

Daniels continued his knockout spree by beating out the A-6 of Chris Brewer with his AJ. Brewer earned $84,500 for his third-place showing. This was is seventh POY-qualified final table finish of 2021, with $834,000 accumulated along the way. He has climbed into 17th place in the POY race as a result.

Heads-up play began with Daniels holding 4,850,000 to Sergi Reixach’s 1,650,000. The two went on to battle for more than an hour, with Reixach able to overtake the lead at one point. Daniels ultimately regained control, though, and had a sizable chip advantage by the time the final hand was dealt. Daniels shoved from the button with K8 and Reixach called from the big blind with Q5 for a handful of blinds. The board ran out AKQJ7 and Daniels secured the pot and the title with his pair of kings. Reixach earned $130,000 as the runner-up. He had finished sixth just a day earlier, bringing his total haul to $176,200 for the series.

Here is a look at the payouts, POY points, and PokerGO Tour points awarded in this event:

Daniels photo credit: PokerGO.

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