Philipp Gruissem is having quite the nice autumn this year. Less than a three weeks after winning the World Poker Tour (WPT) Alpha8 London event, he has now won his second straight Alpha8 title, taking down the St. Kitts tournament last night.
The million dollar score marks his third significant cash in the span of just a month. In October, Gruissem finished 3rd in the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Europe €25,000 No-Limit Hold’em High Roller Event, good for €250,000 ($337,915). He followed that up week later with his victory at WPT Alpha8 London, a $1,379,840 cash, and then this one, which earned him a check for $1,086,400.
Gruissem is essentially a high roller tournament maven. Here are the rest of his results in large buy-in tournament, just in the 2013 calendar year:
January 2013: PokerStars Caribbean Adventure $98,000 No Limit Hold’em Super High Roller – 3rd place – $400,700
February 2013: Aussie Millions $25,000 Challenge – 2nd place – A$187,000 ($197,416)
April 2013: WSOP Asia Pacific A$50,000 No-Limit Hold’em High Roller Re-buy – 1st place – A$825,000 ($863,386)
June 2013: GuangDong Asia Millions HK$250,000 No-Limit Hold’em Warm Up – 3rd place – HK$1,719,000 ($221,427)
He also had two cashes in €10,000 and £10,000 buy-in tournament, which don’t even qualify as high roller events nowadays.
Gruissem has earned over $4.6 million this year and has climbed to 4th on the Global Poker Index (GPI) rankings.
Going into final table play yesterday, Gruissem was actually the second shortest stack at the table with 274,000 chips. Despite that, he was not in terrible shape, as most of the players were bunched in the 200,000’s and 300,000’s. It was a family farm reunion at the top of the leaderboard, as Tom McDonald was way out ahead with 660,000, followed by Mike “Timex” McDonald with 448,000. After those two came the peloton and Timothy Adams at the rear with 161,000. With just 28 players paying the $100,000 to play, not everyone at the final table was going to make the money; the tournament paid out to only five places.
It was slow going for the first couple hours of the final table, but the silence was finally broken when Isaac Haxton moved all-in pre-flop with Jacks and was called by Fabian Quoss, who had Tens. The Jacks held and Quoss was out in 8th place. Just four hands later, it was Haxton’s turn to go when his Jacks (again) lost to Mike McDonald’s Sixes when a Six flopped. At this point, Gruissem had chipped up some, sitting in the middle of the pack with 383,000 chips.
That was Hand 30. Over the next 15 hands, Gruissem surged, building his stack to 676,000 before Timothy Adams was eliminated on the bubble on Hand 48. Two hands later, Gruissem knocked out Scott Seiver with a flopped set and turned full house to move up to 826,000, still 300,000 shy of Mike McDonald’s chip lead.
McDonald increased that lead when he eliminated Jason Koon in 3rd place on Hand 60, the last knock out before dinner. After dinner, it was a lot of trading trips amongst Gruissem and the McDonalds until Gruissem broke through and doubled through Mike McDonald on Hand 92 to take the chip lead. More of the same after that until Mike McDonald finally came to the end of line, eliminated on Hand 124 of final table play by Tom McDonald.
Going into heads-up play, Gruissem had the lead on McDonald, 1,691,000 to 1,110,000.
It took 26 hands to determine a champion. Throughout the heads-up match, Gruissem stayed in command. He had extended his lead, saw it shrink after a McDonald double-up, and watched it grow once again. On the final hand, McDonald raised to 60,000 pre-flop and Gruissem moved all-in for about 2,200,000 with A-5. After some thought, McDonald decided to make the call for his tournament life with A-6. A wise move. Unfortunately, for McDonald, a 5 flopped and his dreams of winning the Alpha8 event were over. Philipp Gruissem was the champion, another million dollars in the bank.
World Poker Tour Alpha8 St. Kitts – Final Standings
1. Philipp Gruissem – $1,086,400
2. Tom McDonald – $679,000
3. Michael McDonald – $434,560
4. Jason Koon – $298,760
5. Scott Seiver – $217,280
