Stefan Schillhabel, a proud representative of Germany’s finest poker talent, last night bested some of the world’s most seasoned poker pros to collect a six-figure payout of $493,000 and a shiny trophy. To be more specific, Schillhabel emerged the victor from the $50,000 Super High Roller, which took place as part of the 2018 Lucky Hearts Poker Open festival over the past two days.

Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino is currently playing host to the exciting festival and a gathering place for some of the world’s best poker players, many of whom came straight from the recently completed PokerStars Caribbean Adventure in the Bahamas.

The Super High Roller event was the highest buy-in tournament on the festival’s schedule. The event originally featured a guaranteed prize pool of $1 million, which was surpassed to reach $1,232,500. As many as 25 entries joined the event’s field over the two days of action, and in Schillhabel’s own words, only two of them were recreational players.

During the first day of play, the original field of 25 contenders for the first-place prize and the trophy was reduced to just five players. Here it is important to note that the $50,000 Super High Roller paid the top five places.

Ben Tollerene, who was running pretty well over the course of Day 1, eventually became the unfortunate bubble boy. His elimination in sixth place marked the end of the first day of action.

The five survivors resumed play at the host venue on Thursday to play down to a winner. Justin Bonomo entered Day 2 action as the chip leader. The player came fresh from a second-place finish in this year’s PCA $100,000 Super High Roller, from which he scooped a payout of $1,077,800. Bonomo and Schillhabel were joined by prominent poker pros Adrian Mateos, David Peters, and Nick Petrangelo to battle it out for the Lucky Hearts Poker Open $50,000 Super High Roller trophy.

While the five remaining contenders were deep in stacks at the beginning of the day, it took only three hands before the first of them was eliminated. That unfortunate one was David Peters. The player received $98,600 for his fifth-place finish.

Nick Petrangelo was the next to go. Leaving in fourth place, he collected $135,575 from the payout desk. Despite his good start of the day, Bonomo eventually made it to a third-place finish in the tournament. His share of the prize pool totaled $197,200.

The heads-up match between Mateos and Schillhabel began with the young Spaniard holding the greater portion of all chips in play. However, the chip lead switched hands on several occasions throughout the two-hour duel, until the German poker pro took hold of it at one point and never looked back.

On what turned out to be the final hand in play, the two opponents checked pre-flop to see the [8d][7s][3d] arrive. Mateos then checked and Schillhabel bet 60,000. Mateos check-raised to 200,000 and his German opponent called.

The [10h] appeared on the turn and Mateos shoved for his last 565,000. Schillhabel called immediately and tabled [Qs][8h] against his opponent’s [3h][7c]. The [6d] arrived on the river and the rest is history. Mateos’ runner-up finish secured him with a total of $308,125 in prize money. As for the champion, he collected a nice payout of $493,000 and the guitar pick-shaped trophy.

Schillhabel is one of Germany’s most profitable players with live tournament earnings of over $8.1 million. The player won his best live cash last summer when he finished third in the Aria Super High Roller Bowl $300,000 No-Limit Hold’em. He received $2.4 million for his deep run in the prestigious event.

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