Coming into 2024, Seth Davies’ two largest high roller scores both came in events in which he fell just short of securing the title. In the past two months, though, Davies has emerged victorious in two Super High Roller Bowl events to set two new personal records.
In late August he took down the SHRB IX $300,000 buy-in no-limit hold’em event for a career-best payday of $3,206,000. He backed up that marquee win by coming out on top in this year’s SHRB: Pot-Limit Omaha $100,000 buy-in, besting a field of 42 entries to earn $1,500,000.
This latest victory is now the second-largest score on Davies’ impressive resume. The World Poker Tour champion’s career earnings now sit at more than $32.2 million.
Davies has made the money 27 times so far in 2024, accumulating nearly $8.7 million along the way. From those cashes, he has gone on to make 15 final tables and win three titles. This latest win came with 600 Card Player Player of the Year points, bringing his total to 4,774. He now sits in 14th place in the POY standings presented by Global Poker.
Davies also picked up 450 PokerGO Tour points as the champion, increasing his total to 1,855. As a result, he now sits in third place in the season-long standings for that high-stakes-centric points race. He trails only six-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner Jeremy Ausmus (2,789 points) and seven-time bracelet winner Daniel Negreanu (2,054 points) on the leaderboard.
The $4,200,000 prize pool for this event was split up amongst the top eight finishers. The money bubble burst on day 2 when none other than Ausmus was sent packing by Artem Maksimov’s queen-high flush. Recent PGT PLO Series II finale champion Ben Tollerene then bowed out in seventh place ($170,000), while two-time bracelet winner Sam Soverel finished sixth ($250,000) to bring day 2 to a close.
The final day began with five players remaining and defending champion Jared Bleznick in the lead. Sean Winter surged up the leaderboard early thanks to taking down a big pot with quad fives.
Winter overtook the lead by eliminating six-time bracelet winner Josh Arieh in fifth place. Arieh got the last of his short stack in after the flop with bottom pair facing the top pair, flush draw, and open-ended straight draw of Winter, who made sixes and fives by the end to score the knockout. Arieh earned $330,000 for his efforts, growing his lifetime tournament earnings to over $13.4 in the process.
Davies was short for much of the early four-handed action, even falling to just a couple of big blinds after one failed bluff attempt. He was able to keep his composure, though, and chipped up a bit ahead of the next knockout. The elimination was set up by another hand, which saw Bleznick lose a big all-in against Maksimov after calling a turn shove with three pair, the nut flush draw and a gutshot to broadway. He was up against the made ace-high straight for Maksimov, who also had a gutshot straight flush draw. The river changed nothing and Bleznick was left short.
He soon got all-in wafter a A
9
8
flop with AQ77
trailing the QJ99 of Davies. The K turn made things interesting, but the 4 on the end meant that Davies’ set of nines would earn the pot. Bleznick walked away with $450,000 after his impressive attempt at a title defense.
Davies pulled into a virtual tie with Maksimov for the lead ahead of the next big showdown. Davies raised from the button with Q1087 and Winter three-bet to 700,000 out of the big blind with AA93. Davies called and made two pair on the K107 flop. Winter led out for 400,000 and Davies called. The 10 turn improved him to a full house. Winter fired another 575,000 and Davies called. The 10 on the end saw Winter fire 2,495,000, leaving himself just 5,000. Davies moved all-in with his quads and Winter called with his tens full of aces to finish third ($600,000). Winter now has more than $32.4 million in career earnings after his strong showing in this event.
Heads-up play began with Davies holding 8,695,000 to the 3,905,000 of Maksimov. The gap between the two contenders was narrowed in the early going, but Davies eventually won a big pot with a set of sixes to pull away again.
In the final hand of the tournament, Davies raised to 300,000 on the button with AJ64 and Maksimov three-bet to 900,000 from the big blind with AK87. The flop came down Q43 and Maksimov moved all-in for 1,500,000. Davies thought it over before making the call with middle pair, which was best at the time. The 5 turn gave Maksimov a gutshot to go with his live pair outs, but the 4 on the end improved Davies to trips to secure him the pot and the title.
Maksimov was awarded $900,000 as the runner-up, his largest recorded tournament score to date.
Here is a look at the payouts and rankings points awarded the final table:
| Place | Player | Earnings | POY Points | PGT Points |
| 1 | Seth Davies | $1,500,000 | 600 | 450 |
| 2 | Artem Maksimov | $900,000 | 500 | 270 |
| 3 | Sean Winter | $600,000 | 400 | 180 |
| 4 | Jared Bleznick | $450,000 | 300 | 135 |
| 5 | Josh Arieh | $330,000 | 250 | 99 |
| 6 | Sam Soverel | $250,000 | 200 | 75 |
| 7 | Benjamin Tollerene | $170,000 | 150 | 51 |
Photo credits: PokerGO / Antonio Abrego.
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