Online cash game specialist takes down $25,000 NLH Event at Poker Masters

After walking away with the biggest single prize so far at the series, Ali Imsirovic jumped into the $50K event and is the overwhelming chip leader at the final table.

The $25,000 NLH event saw the players paying the buy-in 66 times, and therefore the prize pool grew to $1,650,000. Most of the familiar faces of the high-roller community showed up to try their luck this day too, but only ten of them could walk away with a prize.

Just like on the all-time money list, Dan Smith and Bryn Kenney reached two spots next to each other, the former finishing in 10th, while the latter in 9th place, for $49,500 each.

The next player out was Dan Shack, who's considered one of the best non-professional players in the world. After finishing 6th a few days ago in Event #3 for $55,500 the commodity trader now added another $66,000 to his total live tournament earnings, which now stand at $9.8 million.

Dan was followed by Elio Fox, who received $82,500 for his 7th-place finish. Elio's year is pretty impressing so far, he accumulated almost $4 million, good for the 21st place on the 2018 money list.

The official final table of six saw, Daniel Negreanu busting first, which was no surprise to see considering, he only had 7 big blinds to start with. Daniel couldn't manage to run up a stack and busted in 6th place again, worth $99,000 this time.

It only took a few moments for Jason Koon, to follow Negreanu on his way out when his Ace-ten ran into the Ace-king of Imsirovic. Jason earned $132,000 for finishing 5th.

Coming into the final day, the biggest stack belonged to Jake Schindler, but his chips were all gone by the four-handed period. He shoved his last five bigs from the small, only to get called by Ali in the big. No miracle happened, and Jake had to settle for 4th place for $165,000 in addition to his 3rd place finish in Event #2.

Despite holding the lead for a long time at the final table, Brian Rast eventually busted in 3rd place and left the two upcoming guys battle it out. Rast picked up $214,500 at the cage.

Runner-up Ben Yu

Thanks to a big lead at the start of the heads-up, Ali was able to close things out in only three hands. In the final hand, he won a flip with pocket fives against the Ace-six of Ben Yu's to take down the event and the $462,000 coming with it. Yu added $330,000 to his bankroll as well as 210 points on the Purple Jacket Rankings, where he now stands in 3rd place.

2018 Poker Masters Purple Jacket Rankings

The race is still lead by Brandon Adams, but the 30-point difference can easily melt during the last two events, and several players have a good shot to overcome the Harvard prof. Ali Imsirovic is one of those players, since he has more than 50% of all the chips in play at the $50K NLH Event, and is only 5 players away from a back-to-back win. However, it's safe to say that the rest of the remaining guys will do their best to stop him.

Final table chip counts