Michael Brinkenhoff Wins Latest Venetian High Roller Poker Tournament

The second in a trio of high-stakes no-limit hold’em tournaments at The Venetian Las Vegas wrapped up in the early-morning hours of Saturday, May 7. The $10,000 buy-in Venetian High Roller event drew a field of 23 entries, creating a prize pool of $230,000 that was paid out among the top four finishers. When all was said and done, Michael Brinkenhoff emerged victorious with the title and the top prize of $105,800.

This was the first recorded live win for Brinkenhoff, with his previous top score being a seventh-place showing in a $5,000 buy-in turbo event at the 2017 World Series of Poker for $59,107. He now has more than a quarter of a million dollars in lifetime cashes to his name.

In addition to the title and the money, Brinkenhoff also earned 180 Card Player Player of the Year points for his first qualifying score of the year. This was also his first cash counting towards the 2022 PokerGO Tour points race.

Brinkenhoff burst the money bubble thanks to a preflop cooler, with his pocket aces holding against the pocket kings of bracelet winner and World Poker Tour champion Dylan Linde.

Anthony Hu was the first player eliminated inside of the money. He lost the majority of his stack running into quads for Brinkenhoff. The next hand he got all-in with J-9, only for Brinkenhoff to call with a dominating K-J. A king-high flop saw Brinkenhoff extend his lead in the hand, which he maintained through the river. Hu earned $23,00 as the fourth-place finisher.

Bracelet winner Andrew Lichtenberger the next to go. The recent Seminole Hard Rock Poekr SHowdown $50,000 buy-in champion called all-in from the big blind with A-8 facing a small-blind shove from Shannon Shorr, Lichtenberger was ahead of Shorr’s Q-J, but a jack-high runout saw Shorr make a winning pair to secure the pot. Lichtenberger earned $36,800 for his third-place showing. This was his sixth final-table finish of the year. He now sits in 73rd place in the 2022 POY race, which is sponsored by Global Poker.

With that, Brinkenhoff took a slight lead into heads-up play with Shorr. After losing the advantage briefly, he was able to regain the lead and then extend it. By the time the final hand was dealt, Shorr had slipped to just more than 11 big blinds. Brinenhoff raised on the button and Shorr moved all-in from the big blind with K3. Brinkenhoff called with 65 and the flop came down A107 to give him an unbeatable flush. The turn and river were mere formalities and Shorr was sent home with $64,400 as the runner-up. This was his seventh POY-qualified final table of 2022. With 1,392 total points and more than $660,000 in year-to-date earnings, Shorr is now the 51st-ranked player in the overall POY standings.

Here is a look at the payouts and rankings points awarded in this event:

Photo via PokerGO live updates.

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