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2017 PokerStars Championship Bahamas

$100,000 Super High Roller
Dias: 3
Event Info

2017 PokerStars Championship Bahamas

Resultados Finais
Campeão
Mão Vencedora
q8
Premiação
$1,650,300
Event Info
Buy-in
$100,000
Premiação
$5,239,080
Entries
54

Jason Koon Wins PokerStars Championship Bahamas $100,000 Super High Roller for $1,650,300

Jason Koon
Jason Koon

Years ago, very likely in 2009, Jason Koon attended what was then the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure for the first time. At the time, he was grinding it out in live satellites just trying to get a seat into the Main Event. Walking out of the venue, he saw Scott Seiver strolling in, headphones on, getting ready for the $25,000 High Roller final table.

The moment sticks in Koon's memory, as he thought to himself at the time that he hoped to one day be playing in those same events. Now, at the PokerStars Championship Bahamas in 2017, Koon has realized the optimistic version of his dream; winning the $100,000 Super High Roller in a field of 54 players to take down a career-best prize of $1,650,300.

"Sitting there with the trophy in front of me was kind of a surreal moment," he said of fulfilling that goal.

It's the continuation of what's been a scorching hot run for Koon in some of the biggest tournaments in the world. From July 2016 to the end of the calendar year, Koon tallied six scores worth between $273,765 and $1,000,000, the latter coming when he won the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open in August. Koon has been a monster in the high roller circuit during that stretch, with only the SHRPO win coming in an event smaller than $25,000.

In this particular tournament, Koon ran headlong into another player on a white-hot heater: Charlie Carrel. Both players cashed for north of $2 million in 2016, and they battled heads up after outlasting a final table that included the likes of Daniel Colman and defending champ Bryn Kenney to name just two of the crushers.

While both had locked up six-figure cashes, only one could make history as the first $100,000 Super High Roller champion of the PokerStars Championship era. The match would not disappoint, getting underway after the two looked over the payouts but decided to go ahead and play things out instead of making a deal.

The young British star entered with almost a 2-1 lead and just shy of 90 big blinds. Fresh off a second-place finish at European Poker Tour Prague in the $50,000 Super High Roller, Carrel surely felt confident and ready to close things out as he moved quickly to more than a 3-1 lead.

The turning point came on a board of {k-Spades}{k-Diamonds}{6-Diamonds}{5-Diamonds}{9-Diamonds}. Koon check-raised the flop and then fired big bets on the turn and river, the latter being an all-in shove. Carrel seemed to indicate he had ace-high and thought things over while working his typical verbal probe before he ultimately decided to fold.

"That's just a spot where I shoved for full pot on the river because I'm repping at very worst a very good king," Koon said when asked to analyze the hand. "I'm repping a very thin range of hands there."

"Who knows what we had?" he said with a straight face.

With that, Koon evened things up and then grabbed a lead he wouldn't relinquish. The two continued to battle but Koon got the better of the majority of the skirmishes and finished Carrel a little over an hour later. The American was nothing but complimentary of his British foe after lifting the trophy.

"He seems like a really incredible guy," Koon said. "Whenever I was that age, I was a total trainwreck. It looks like he's figured some stuff out that took me a decade longer to figure out."

Koon called his current heater "just ridiculous." It comes at a very opportune time for him, coming off of a 2015 that saw him cash for "just" $842,084. That might sound like plenty, but with the stakes Koon often plays, he said it represented a roughly break-even year.

Still, he didn't let things get him down. He has strong understanding of how sample sizes work, and he knows a year full of tournaments alone is not enough to overcome variance.

Personal relationships also played a big role in Koon's ability to shake off the slump. He began dating his girlfriend for one thing and also had the security of knowing at least one of poker's greatest minds, Ben Tollerene, had faith in him.

"It does a lot for your confidence to know that some of the best players in the world believe in you and they're there to help you," Koon said.

Koon also said he believes he was one of the first tournament players to start incorporating game theory optimal concepts into his play. That strategic shift propelled him from playing $500 events to crushing at one of the highest levels in the game, piling up $7.5 million in live cashes now to go with heaps more online.

Koon now bases his entire strategy around GTO play. It's helped him stay out of what he called "leveling wars and ego-fests" and left him secure in the knowledge that he had made strong strategic decisions even in spots that ended in elimination.

"It's like the worst feeling in the world to walk out knowing you punted a tournament because you got tricked by some dude," Koon said.

It's certainly served him well given all the results he has put up, and Koon ranks this win as possibly his best yet.

But, he isn't ready to rest on his laurels or start slowing down. He feels the window is closing on the opportunity to make big money playing no-limit hold'em tournaments, so he's looking to keep rolling and make his mark on the game. In order to retire knowing he was one of the game's best, Koon knows he will have to keep ignoring results and putting in work to keep skilled rivals like Carrel at bay.

"I think it's really important to keep my eye on the rail, stay grounded and realize that I'm having a mini-Fedor moment and that's awesome," he said. "But at the same time, there's a bunch of guys that are more talented than I am so I need to work hard and stay on top of it."

PositionPlayerCountryPrize
1Jason KoonUnited States$1,650,300
2Charlie CarrelUNited Kingdom$1,191,900
3Daniel ColmanUnited States$759,660
4Daniel DvoressCanada$576,300
5Byron KavermanUnited States$445,320
6Connor DrinanUnited States$340,540
7Bryn KenneyUnited States$275,060

Tags: Jason Koon

Felipe Ramos – Winners Never Wait

Felipe Ramos
Felipe Ramos

One player who has a reason to smile upon arriving at the PokerStars Championships Bahamas $5,300 Main Event is Brazilian legend and Team PokerStars Pro Felipe Ramos. He’s already cashed in a $2,000 side event and will play tomorrow’s Main Event Day 1b and is all about the positive mental element of success.

“I cashed in the last event of the year and my first event of the year," he said. "It doesn’t get much better than that!”

Ramos, who worked his way up from the slums of Sao Paulo to poker’s top table, has earned a reputation as one of the stars of Brazilian poker and the game worldwide. Friends with FC Barcelona’s legendary forward Neymar, Ramos is the go-to guy on social media, having become Snapchat and Instagram king to his legions of followers. But his family upbringing and father’s strong sense of professional discipline have taught him how important the fundamentals are:

“Momentum is insanely important," Ramos said. "As a poker player, the most important thing is consistency. If you’re a consistent player, you’re always making money. In 2016, I had five final tables in a row, it was insane. Some were small events, some large events. But it keeps that momentum.”

His many fans around the world follow his every move online, and after his recent trip back to Brazil, he found that some of his supporters had been concerned of his whereabouts:

“I took 24 hours to travel home. I landed and my phone lit up with a bunch of random messages asking ‘Are you sick?’ or ‘Are you OK?’ I’m like ‘It’s fine, guys, I’m all right!' I can’t believe there isn’t Wi-Fi on every flight in the 21st century — it’s unbelievable.”

Ramos the Nomad

It doesn’t end there for the Brazilian. The next 12 months are scheduled to be his busiest yet as he pushed to win the biggest tournaments of his life so far.

“I’m going to play everything in 2017," he said. "I sold my house back in Brazil, so that I could have no expenses and travel the world. I’m going to play everything. I go from the Bahamas to London to play the first PokerStars Festival which is going to be huge. I’m going everywhere.”

Unlike the actor and comedian Kevin Hart, who is here with a huge entourage of supporters, Ramos frequently travels solo, with just his guitar — quite literally — on the former musician’s back.

“I like to travel light," he said. "At the PokerStars BSOP, I took two or three people. At the biggest stops such as Monaco and Barcelona where there are a lot of events and I need some help, I’ll have people with me, but at small to medium events I like to travel alone.”

Ramos traveled to the Bahamas following a traditional family Christmas. While so much of his year is spent at poker events, surrounded by people he hasn’t met before, there is no substitute for family.

“Christmas is our biggest holiday including the Rio carnival in February," he said. "We’re very traditional Christians, so Christmas is a huge deal. I spent it with my family and friends, drinking beers with my Dad; there’s nothing better than that.”

Football

Legend has it that every baby boy in Brazil receives a football at Christmas. Ramos confirmed that for him, it was even sooner than his first Christmas.

“Before I was born, I had footballs — I had a bunch of them!" he said. "My whole family are Corinthian fans, but my uncle was a Palmeiras fan and another uncle supported FC Santos. They all gave me team jerseys and balls to try to get me to support their teams. My grandfather saw the things for the other teams and he told me to ‘throw this stuff away!’”

His love of football has grown and grown, leading to Ramos recently giving a seminar on the mental aspects of poker to a professional under-20 team in Brazil. They won the next game, and the coach contacted him personally to tell him what a difference it made.

While he supports Corinthians, Ramos was one of the worldwide football community affected by the tragic air crash transporting Chapecoense players, media and staff to the 2016 Copasudamericana Final. Only six people survived of the 77 passengers aboard, just three players from the fabled team.

“That was really terrible," Ramos said. "I was playing the BSOP Millions, a huge PokerStars event in Brazil when we got the news. I remember that day, I couldn’t do anything. I was devastated.”

It’s clear that for all of his positivity at the felt and on the rail, Ramos was deeply affected by the events of that day. It left him with a lasting message to apply to his own life.

“You can’t imagine such a terrible tragedy," he said. "I was incredibly sad, but because it is something that can happen to any of us, it made me realize that we must live in the present moment as much as we can.

"If you want to say ‘sorry’ or 'forgive me,' do it now and live better. Because you may not have the chance to say it. The tragedy made me much closer to my family. I have a grandma who is 79 and she’s the oldest person in my family. I already told my dad that we’re going to have a huge party when she turns 80. It will have samba, with music and I’m going to play and sing. It’s important.”

With that, Ramos is on the move again, hopping from friend to friend across the tournament floor in much the same way as he’ll travel from tournament to tournament in 2017.

If his life continues on the same track, you’ll be hearing about a major trophy heading the Brazilian’s way very soon... probably because your friends shared it on social media.

Felipe Ramos

Tags: Felipe Ramos