After Mark Newhouse amazed the world of poker by becoming the first-player in November Nine history to make back-to-back World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event final tables, Lee Davy highlights a few more modern day miracles.
1# Marvin Rettenmaier Wins Back-to-Back World Poker Tour (WPT) Main Events
It took a decade for the first player to win back-to-back WPT events, and it happened just a few months prior to ‘Mad’ Marvin Rettenmaier being signed up as a partypoker Team Pro.
One of Rettenmaier’s first tournaments after donning his new patch was the $25,000 WPT Championships at The Bellagio, and he promptly won it after defeating 151 opponents on his way to a career defining victory and seven figure score.
That tournament marked the finale of Season X, and the German would travel to northern Cyprus to participate in the Season XI opener, at the Merit Cyprus Classic, where he would defeat 328 players to become the first-ever player to win back-to-back WPT Main Event titles.
2# Chris Moorman Becomes the First Player to Win $10m in Online MTT’s
In July 2013, Chris Moorman topped the field in a $215 buy-in event on partypoker, and his $9,500 first prize ensured a place in the history books as the first player to win $10m in online MTTs tracked by PocketFives. The online wizard would then go on to win a $200k GTD on partypoker, to bag an astonishing 20 PocketFives.com Triple Crowns.
So how does he do it?
Fortunately for you, his secrets are about to be unveiled, as he is set to write a poker strategy book called Moorman’s Book of Poker.
3# Ole Schemion Wins the 2013 Global Poker Index (GPI) Player of the Year (POY) Without Stepping Foot on American Soil
One of the brightest stars to emerge in poker over the past few years is Ole Schemion.
It has taken the young German only three years to amass over $6.2m in live tournament earnings, and he was also honoured at the 2013 GPI European Poker Awards where he won the GPI POY title after a close tussle with Canadian superstar Daniel Negreanu.
What makes Schemion’s GPI POY success even more remarkable is he achieved the feat without stepping foot on American soil. The German was too young to play in American events, and when you consider that approx. 25% of a GPI players total annual score is earned in the WSOP then you can see the damage that Schemion was wreaking around Europe.
In 2014, Schemion reached the ripe old age of 21 and decided to board a plane to Vegas, for the first time, where he duly won over a million dollars.
4# The Consistency of Simon Deadman
Simon Deadman gets a little bit of ribbing from his friends as the king of the runner-up finish.
But there are worse places to end up at a poker table.
What makes Deadman such a success story is he hardly ever plays online, grew his bankroll playing in the local casino scene around the UK, and consistently finishes in the top three at a rate that will be difficult to match anywhere in the world.
Deadman recorded his first live tournament score back in 2009 when he finished 11th in a £55 Freezeout in Dusk till Dawn, and since then he has cashed 115 times, and been in the top three spots an incredible 51 times.
That’s a 44% ITM Top 3 rate, and so I say great work mate.
5# Wojtek Barzantny Wins Back to Back UKIPT Main Events Both Live and Online
The third German success story comes from Wojtek Barzantny, who managed to defy odds of 340,000:1 to win back-to-back UKIPT Main Event titles within days of each other. What was even more incredible about this success, was the tournaments graced both live and online variants of the game.
Barzantny’s first UKIPT success came in the Season 3 UKIPT Online Main Event where he defeated 587 players en route to a £77,126 payday. There was a twist in the tale as all the final table players had to play the event live as a preliminary event to the UKIPT Main Event in Bristol.
Barzantny defeated Chris Moorman, in heads-up action, and then duly flicked in the necessary coinage to take his seat in that other Main Event. Several days later and Barzantny had cut a path through another 550 players en route to his second victory in the space of a few days.
6# The Birth of Jeff Madsen
In 2006, Jeff Madsen stormed the world of poker when he came into his first-ever World Series of Poker (WSOP) and left with absolutely everything.
In the space of 21 incredible days, Madsen made four final tables, in four different variations of poker, and walked away with two WSOP bracelets and $1.4m in cash.
His achievements were rewarded when he was presented with the award for the WSOP Player of the Year, and he also set a new record as the youngest ever WSOP bracelet winner at that time.
Win Big in our superb Sunday Majors!
Every week you have the chance to win big in our excellent Sunday Majors. Some of our biggest, richest and most exciting tournaments run every Sunday including an action-packed fun $10K Super Bounty and a wide range of low buy-in tournaments featuring speed, rebuy, add-on and PLO tournaments – a great Sunday mix if you want to win top prizes and have fun playing tournament poker.
Keep up to date with the all new partypoker!
Get all the latest partypoker updates from your favourite social media outlets. You can Follow us on Twitter and Like us on Facebook.
