Malinowski Wins Super High Roller Bowl Europe Main Event

Last updated on September 2nd, 2021

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The Super High Roller Bowl was a big deal. Of course, it brought some of the most recognized and skilled high-stakes poker players from around the world to Cyprus. The Merit Royal Hotel Casino in North Cyprus was crawling with poker players with a lot of cash and a dream. It was also a big deal because Luxon Pay and GGPoker were the sponsors of the series. In addition, after the pandemic, this was one of the first forays of a poker tour to head to Europe, especially one for the high rollers.

And now that it’s over, it’s plain to see that most poker players thought it was a big deal, too.

Fans were – or will be – happy to see that Phil Ivey won the first tournament and Tony G won two other events. And in the end, Walter Malinowski of Poland, known to many online as Limitless, won the Super High Roller Bowl Europe itself for a cool $3.69M.

SHRB Europe Series Results

The buy-ins ranged from $25K to $250K. This was not poker for the faint of heart or those with shaky bankrolls. This was for the heavy hitters only. The series began on August 23 and ran through the end of the month. Let’s check out the slate of results:

Event 1: $25K buy-in Short Deck Hold’em = 48 entries, $1.2M prize pool, 7 players paid
–Phil Ivey (USA) won for $408K

Event 2: $25K buy-in NLHE = 81 entries, $2,025,000 prize pool, 12 players paid
–Johan Guilbert (France) won for $506,250
Event 3: $25K buy-in Short Deck Hold’em = 45 entries, $1,125,000 prize pool, 7 players paid
–Tony G (Lithuania) won for $382,500

Event 4: $50K buy-in NLHE = 52 entries, $2.6M prize pool, 8 players paid
–Selahaddin Bedir (Turkey) won for $832K
Event 5: $50K Short Deck Hold’em = 42 entries, $2.1M prize pool, 6 players paid
–Santi Jiang (Spain) won for $756K
Event 6: $50K NLHE = 35 entries, $3.5M prize pool, 5 players paid
–Artur Martirosian (Russia) won for $1.4M
Event 7: $100K Short Deck Hold’em = 26 entries, $2.6M prize pool, 4 players paid
–Tony G (Lithuania) won for $1,196,000
Event 8: $50K Short Deck Hold’em = 19 entries, $950K prize pool, 3 players paid
–Seth Davies (USA) won for $435,400

SHRB Europe Main Event

The European version of the Super High Roller Bowl played out over three days. And the buy-in was a steep $250K per person. Reentries cost the same.

The first day brought in 29 unique players and six reentries, putting the prize pool at $8.75M. However, registration remained open through the start of the following day. Of the starting field, there were 22 players who ended the night with chips, and Chi Zhang of the UK held the chip lead. For context, Wiktor Malinowski was tenth in the chip counts.

Day 2 started with a few more players. That put the total tournament numbers at:

Total entries: 41 (32 players, 9 reentries)
Total prize pool: $10,250,000
Total players paid: 6

Play moved forward toward the money and the official final table bubble. With just eight players remaining, David Peters held a slight lead over Ivan Leow, while Viacheslav Buldygin held the shortest stack. The latter and fellow short-stack Michael Addamo both won some all-ins to stay in action. However, Zhuang Ruan finally busted Addamo in eighth place, and in short order, Malinowski eliminated Ali Imsirovic in seventh place.

That set the final table as follows:
Wiktor Malinowski = 3.1M chips
Timothy Adams = 2.29M chips
Zhuang Ruan = 1.76M chips
Ivan Leow = 1,505,000 chips
David Peters = 1.35M chips
Viacheslav Buldygin = 305K chips

The final table, action courtesy of PokerNews, started with Peters doubling through Ruan on the very first hand with quads. Ruan then doubled through Buldygin, leaving the latter with just 115K chips. Leow took care of that short stack, busting Buldygin in sixth place.

Leow then doubled through Peters, and Ruan doubled through Adams. Leow then busted Peters in fifth place, and Malinowski sent Adams back home with a fourth-place finish. Leow stepped back up to the plate to challenge Ruan, and Ruan did leave in third place.

Heads-up began with Leow holding 5,635,000 chips to the 4,615,000 of Malinowski. The latter played aggressively from the start and quickly took over the lead. He then extended that lead, though Leow climbed back to near-even. The two battled for quite some time, with Malinowski holding the chip lead most of the time, but both players intent on winning. They played their duel for approximately five hours.

Finally, Malinowski scored a huge double-up through Leow, leaving the latter with 600K chips. Leow shoved those chips with J-4 suited, and Malinowski called with 9-8 offsuit. The board of A-6-5-8-4 delivered nothing but a pair for Malinowski for the win.

The final results were:

-1^st place: Wiktor Malinowski (Poland) $3.69M
-2^nd place: Ivan Leow (Malaysia) $2.46M
-3^rd place: Zhuang Ruan (USA) $1.64M
-4^th place: Timothy Adams (USA) $1,127,500
-5^th place: David Peters (USA) $820K
-6^th place: Viacheslav Buldygin (Russia) $512,500