The final six seats are set for the $100,000 Poker Masters Championship Final Table airing live exclusively on PokerGO at 5:30 pm ET. The race for the Poker Masters Purple Jacket™ is very much still alive, with first place paying over $1.5 million. Here’s a look at the final table and their thoughts heading into the finale.
Seat 1: Justin Bonomo – 1,050,000
“I feel good – we’re all relatively close to even right now, which is much better off than where I was an hour ago when I was very short stacked. I’m happy with my chip position right now.”
[Regarding the Purple Jacket and his hair] “Pink and purple kind of clash, don’t they? I’m not very good with colors, you tell me. The pink is so political at this point – it’s tough to say.”
“There’s definitely a lot of prestige in this event and I hope this is year one of something that becomes a real legacy in the poker world where people look forward to this event. I know I certainly will next year – $1.5 million is a ton of money. All of the players at this final table are extremely talented, so it’s going to be tough.”
Seat 2: Steffen Sontheimer – 1,345,000
“I feel good – playing a nice home game with my friends, it will be fun.”
“Regarding the Jacket, I have one mission – I have to save the world from the combination of Justin’s pink hair and the Purple Jacket. It doesn’t work. I have to get at least second because Fedor and Stefan have cashes already and they will be strong contenders. I still see it as just one tournament and will try to win it.”
“They ask me lots of questions about how to play so I feel like I’m 2% ahead of the curve and I’ll get them in the streets. They don’t know all my moves.”
“There are two things important to me – one is that I have a seven-figure score, which Dominik Nitsche doesn’t have and two is Stefan (Schillhabel) is ahead of me by about $1 million on the German all-time money list, so I have to catch him.”
Seat 3: Seth Davies – 740,000
“It feels great – this is what we came for. For one of my first Super High Rollers it’s awesome to have already locked up a decent goal.”
“This is the real deal – this is the big leagues, I caught myself looking around earlier and it was kind off eerie. There’s 20 people in this room and I was thinking about how many people were watching on PokerGO, it was kind of a cool feeling.”
“I’m the short stack with about 50 big blinds, so I don’t have to be shy about playing tight. The bubble broke so I get to throw some chips around and I’m excited for a pretty crazy day of poker.”
Seat 4: Fedor Holz – 1,471,000
“This is the first Poker Masters so it is a very special thing. I’m pretty amped up right now. I felt really in the zone today and did a couple of crazy things where I still feel comfortable because I was pretty sure I had good reads on what people were doing. I’m also playing with three friends which is exciting. It’s going to be a lot of fun.”
“No banter about the Jacket yet. I think it will start at maybe four-handed then it will be fun. It’s going to be a fight.”
“I just look at one tournament at a time. I want to play well tomorrow, I wasn’t super happy with how I played in the prelims, I was sick and didn’t sleep. Now, I’m like, ‘Let’s get in the zone, really focus and be as professional as I can be.’ Winning this one, that would mean a lot. I’ll try really hard.”
Seat 5: Christian Christner – 1,376,000
“I’m defintely happy to be playing at the final table with all these German guys. It’s going to be interesting, we’re super deep.”
“It was a hard situation for Stephen [Chidwick] I guess, he was doing super good and to be honest, I’m still not sure if that’s a call for me.”
“It would mean a lot [to win]. The last High Roller I played heads-up with Steffen [Sontheimer] too. I would be glad to play heads-up with him again.”
Seat 6: Stefan Schillhabel – 1,218,000
“I think it’s only the PokerGO tournaments I do well in. I bricked every single $25K this summer – not one cash. I really like to play on the feature table stream, I run really good.”
“I’ve played at a lot of feature tables the last couple years so I’m feeling confident. It’s really nice at the ARIA – they take care of everything here. It’s the best place to play high stakes poker tournaments.”
“It would be great to finish first with such great players left. It’s a bit of a problem for me that everyone is so deep because I never play cash games. I’m only a tournament player and feel good with 30-50 big blind average, but we’ve played 100 big blinds average the whole tournament and I took my spots. I see this tournament as itself and I have a good chance, even playing against the best in the world.”
“Fedor and Steffen are the two best players in the world and Christian is a machine and playing perfect. They are going to be the ones to beat and most dangerous for me.”
Editor’s Note: All player photos: Danny Maxwell/Poker Central