It was a dominant wire-to-wire final table performance by Australian high stakes tournament crusher Michael Addamo in Event #11 ($50,000 No Limit Hold’em) of the 2021 Poker Masters. A short two-hour affair that saw Addamo enter with the chip lead, eliminated all four of his final table opponents, and walk away with the $680,000 first-place prize.
“It’s pretty nice, of course,” Addamo said about adding a Poker Masters win to his long list of poker accomplishments. “I’m pretty happy.”
“I had such a great stretch of hands and I pretty much had it the whole time on the final table,” he told PokerGO. “So I can’t credit it to any good bluffing skills. Just good fortune.”
That good fortune started on the second hand of the final table. With blinds at 15,000/30,000 (30,000 bb ante), PokerGO boss Cary Katz ran right into Addamo when he raised to 95,000 from under the gun holding 
. When it was Addamo’s turn to act in the small blind, he three-bet to 250,000 with his 
. The action was back on Katz, who four-bet shipped his 26 big blind stack only to be snap-called by Addamo. The flop came 
providing no help to Katz who needed to hit a jack to stay alive. The 
turn and 
river ended Katz’s day early in fifth place. “That was fun,” Katz quipped as he packed up his belongings and headed to the cage to pick up his $119,000 score.
Addamo went back to work. Twenty minutes later, he opened to 60,000 from the button with the 
. In the small blind, Alex Foxen three-bet to 500,000, leaving himself with less than ten big blinds behind. David Coleman in the big blind let go of his 
and Addamo wasted no time in four-betting enough to force Foxen all-in. Foxen obliged and saw his hand was dominated. The 
flop didn’t change much, keeping Addamo’s ace-high ahead and giving both backdoor straight possibilities, if they can hit each other’s kicker. The 
eliminated any straight potential and, like Katz, Foxen was left looking for a river jack to survive. The river came the 
and Foxen found himself on the rail in fourth place, collecting $187,000.
The brisk pace of play continued as Addamo continued to leverage his chip lead to apply pressure on his opponents. During the same level, Coleman raised the button to 60,000 with the 
and after Jason Koon let go of his 
in the small blind, Addamo decided to defend his big blind with the 
. The flop came 
keeping Coleman’s pocket tens ahead but offering Addamo a gutshot straight draw. Addamo checked it over to Coleman bet 55,000 off his 700k stack. Addamo took a few moments and opted for a call. The 
spiked on the turn and Addamo’s straight came in. Addamo then took the lead and bet out for 75,000, which Coleman called. The hit the river and after taking a few more moments, Addamo shoved and a visibly irritated Coleman was put to the test. With just under 20 big blinds left, Coleman went into the tank and eventually made the fold.
The blinds went up to 20,000/40,000 (40,000 bb ante) and Addamo continued to chip up. Both Koon and Coleman slipped under 20 big blinds and Addamo was taking every spot to force the two short stacks into uncomfortable spots. Another hour passed and the blinds climbed again to 25,000/50,000 (50,000 bb ante) and by this time Addamo had 75% of the chips in play.
Coleman’s time came when Addamo open-shoved from the small blind with his 
and Coleman, down to roughly five big blinds, looked down at the 
and went with it, calling all-in. It was a flip for Coleman’s tournament life and the flop came , giving Coleman some additional outs. The 
hit the turn, and Coleman added even more outs – 14 in total, one time. But Addamo was running too good and when the 
fell on the turn, Coleman stood, shook Addamo’s hand, said “good luck guys” and made his exit in third place, good for $272,000.
With a four-to-one chip lead, Addamo went to work on closing out the tournament. Koon hung around, looking for spots to turn the tide but he was never able to build a chip stack over 1 million at the end.
The final hand had Koon ship a stack of just under 20 big blinds with 
from the button and Addamo, after asking for a count, made the casual call holding 
. The 
flop gave Koon some additional gutshot straight outs. However, the turn came the and the river was the , keeping kickers in play and forcing Koon to settle as the runner-up which was good for $442,000. For his dominating performance, Addamo earned $680,000 and climbs to more than $9 million in career live earnings.
2021 Poker Masters Event #11 Final Table Results
- Michael Addamo – $680,000
- Jason Koon – $442,000
- David Coleman – $272,000
- Alex Foxen – $187,000
- Cary Katz – $119,000