A Look At Recent Bellagio High Roller Poker Tournament Winners

The 2021 Five Diamond World Poker Classic at Bellagio played host to 13 high roller events from Dec. 2-14. The baker’s dozen of high stakes events paid out nearly $7.7 million dollars, with an average prize pool of just over $690,000. Plenty of big names emerged victorious in the final handful of events (#9-13), which will be recapped below. Make sure to also check out Card Player’s recaps of events #1-4 and events #5-8.

Bellagio High Roller #9

The first of four $26,000 buy-in no-limit hold’em events on the schedule took place on Friday, Dec. 10. A total of 21 entries were made, building a prize pool of $525,000 that was divvied up among the top three finishers. The largest chunk was ultimately awarded to Rok Gostisa, who is having a breakout year on the tournament circuit.

Gostisa earned $283,500 and 252 Card Player Player of the Year points for his second POY-qualified title and sixth final-table showing of the year. Thanks to another deep run he made after this score, he now sits in 140th place in the 2021 POY race, which is sponsored by Global Poker.

He also secured 170 PokerGO Tour points for the win. With seven figures in qualified earnings, Gostisa has climbed into 48th place in that points race.

While it didn’t qualify for rankings points, Gostisa did also took down the WPT World Online Championship event this fall for a career-best payday of $959,493.

Alex Foxen finished as the runner-up, earning $157,500, 210 POY points, and 95 PGT points for his second-place showing. Foxen was not yet done putting up results in this series, though.

2018 POY award winner Jake Schindler finished third for $84,000, 168 POY points and 50 PGT points. This was his 16th qualified final-table finish of 2021, and it moved him into 28th place in the POY rankings and 15th in the PokerGO Tour race.

Bellagio High Roller #10

The next $26,000 buy-in event on the agenda drew a smaller turnout of just 13 entries. The $325,000 prize pool was split between just the final two, with France’s Arthur Conan coming out on top in the end to earn $227,500 and 168 POY points. This was his second title and fourth POY-qualified final table of the year. He went on to make one more deep run after this to bring his total points to 2,199. With over $1.3 million in POY earnings, he now occupies the 74th-place spot in the rankings.

Conan’s largest score of the year came when he took down the $50,000 buy-in high roller at the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown in April for $733,320 and 510 points.

Alex Foxen finished second for $97,500, 140 POY points, and 59 PGT points. This was Foxen’s 24th POY-qualified final table of the year, with two titles and nearly $2.7 million won along the way. He now sits in fourth place in the POY standings and 12th on the PokerGO Tour leaderboard.

Bellagio High Roller #11

The final $10,500 buy-in high roller event for this year’s Five Diamond saw 42 entries build a prize pool of $420,000.

Two-time WSOP bracelet winner Nick Petrangelo came away with the largest share of that money, earning $151,200, 300 POY points, and 151 PokerGO Tour points. Petrangelo has now made 10 POY-qualified final tables, with three wins and more than $3.5 million earned in 2021. He currently sits in 65th place in the POT rankings as a result, and is 17th on the PGT leaderboard.

Just a few days after finishing second in the WSOP Europe main event for $883,715, Johan Guilbert made a run to fourth place in this event ($42,000, 150 POY, 42 PGT points). The score catapulted him inside the top ten in the POY race (9th – 4,170 points) and into 14th in the PokerGO Tour standings.

Sung Joo Hyun secured his tenth POY-qualified score of the year by finishing sixth for $25,200 and 100 points. His three titles (including one earlier this series) and 3,544 points are enough to place him 20th in the standings heading into the final fortnight of the year.

Bellagio High Roller #12

The penultimate high roller event of the series saw the buy-in tick back up to $26,000. A total of 25 entries were made, creating a $625,000 prize pool. Just a few weeks after finishing fourth in the World Poker Tour Rock’N’Roll Poker Open $3,500 buy-in main event for $282,380, Turkey’s Selahaddin Bedir came out on top in this event for $287,500 and 252 POY points.

This was his second title and seventh final-table finish of the year. He now occupies the 38th-place spot on the leaderboard, with more than $2.3 million in POY-earnings in 2021.

As previously mentioned, Rok Gostisa made another deep run following his win in event #9, placing third in this tournament for $100,000.

Bellagio High Roller #13

The final high roller on the schedule for the Five Diamond series was also the largest, in terms of field size. The $26,000 buy-in event attracted a field of 54 entries, resulting in $1,350,000 paid out to the top eight finishers.

Bracelet winner Andrew Lichtenberger was the last player standing in the end, defeating Ray Qartomy heads-up (2nd – $283,500) to earn $432,000 and 420 POY points. The score increased Lichtenberger’s career earnings to just shy of $12.2 million.

Bedir finished third for $189,000, while two-time bracelet winner Elio Fox took home $135,000 as the fourth-place finisher. Jeremey Ausmus, who won his second and third bracelets at this year’s WSOP, kept up his strong run with a fifth-place showing for $108,000. He climbed into 24th place in the POY race, with 13 final-table finishes and the previously mentioned pair of titles.

The next three finishers were all previous high roller winners at this series: event #1 champion Giuseppe Iadisernia (6th – $81,000), event #4 champion Henrik Hecklen (7th – $67,500), and event #10 champion Arthur Conan (8th – $54,000).

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