Prevented as all live poker tournament series are right now from being held in a physical casino, the Poker Masters – this year called the Poker Masters Online – concluded online this weekend. The high-stakes series, presented by Poker Central on partypoker, had 30 tournaments, all of which had five-figure buy-ins. And the excitement lasted until the end, as Alexandros Kolonias clinched the overall championship on Sunday, the fourth player to claim the now-coveted purple jacket.
Russia’s Artur Martirosian was atop the Poker Masters Online leader board going into the 30th and final event, $10,500 No-Limit Hold’em Six-Max with a $250,000 guarantee. Kolonias was able to go all the way and win the tournament, earning just enough points to skyrocket into the championship.
Kolonias cashed in 11 of the 30 events, earning $1,266,296 and 1,191 points. Artur Martirosian cashed 9 times for $1,278,974 and 1,048 points.
“It feels amazing, I really wanted to win this. It means a lot to me winning the Purple Jacket,” Kolonias told Poker Central afterward.
Reflecting on the Poker Masters Online series, Kolonias discussed how difficult it was to ascend to the top of the points standings:
….it was two long weeks with two events every day and it came down to the last day. I was doing really well in the Main Event as well but then lost it, unfortunately. In the six-max I was left with 1.5bb with 50 players left and no more re-entries. I felt like it was almost over but then I doubled-up three times and was back in the game, and went all the way to win it. I didn’t want to look at the points exactly but I knew that if I won the six-max I was most likely going to win the leader board so I played to win.
Kolonias has quite the poker tournament track record. These Poker Masters results will not be reflected on his resume at TheHendonMob.com because they were online tournaments, but overall, his live tournament earnings are over $3.7 million. His last live win was his best: the World Series of Poker Europe Main Event.
Speaking further with Poker Central, Kolonias said he was more emotional when he won the WSOP Europe Main Event. But while there were no tears like in October, he did say that winning the purple jacket feels very similar to winning WSOP Europe.
“I am very proud of this win because I think I played the best poker I have ever played and the competition was really tough,” he added.
Kolonias mentioned that he did well in the $50,000 Main Event before bowing out. The winner of that tournament was Linus Loeliger, who pocketed just over $1 million for the victory. He destroyed the final table, earning almost enough Poker Masters leader board points to claim the purple jacket. His 658 points put him in third overall with 1,037.
Though Loeliger had just three cashes, the Main Event win made him the richest player of the Poker Masters Online with $1,511,818 in total earnings.