Kings Resort in Rozvadoz, Czech Republic, is where you need to head this September if you are a fan of high-stakes Pot-Limit Omaha action. Kings are once again hosting The Big Wrap series, and it is bigger and better than ever before.

The Big Wrap runs from September 12-18 at Europe’s largest cardroom. Seven Pot-Limit Omaha events plus a handful of satellites are scheduled, and some of those tournaments are massive in terms of buy-ins and guaranteed prize pools.

What better way to start the latest Big Wrap festival than with a €5,000 buy-in, €500,000 guaranteed event? A similar tournament took place at The Big Wrap in March 2023 and saw Hungary’s Gergo Nagy outlast 86 entrants to take home €114,706. The guarantee was “only” €200,000 that day, so expect a much more substantial top prize this time around.

King’s Resort Has Big WSOP Plans For The Rest Of 2023

Two Events With Seven-Figure Guarantees

Following the €5,000 buy-in event is a €10,000 buy-in affair known as The Big Wrap Diamond 10K PLO High Roller. Kings Resort is expecting a substantial turnout for this tournament, as is evident by the massive €2,000,000 guarantee the casino has slapped on the prize pool. The equivalent event earlier this year guaranteed €500,000, but a 142-strong field ensured €1,308,530 was paid out. A player choosing to remain anonymous took home €337,000 for their victory. Can you imagine the size of first-place prize money with a €2 million guaranteed prize pool?

Amazingly, that is not the only seven-figure guarantee on The Big Wrap’s schedule because another €10,000 buy-in High Roller is set to pay not a cent less than €1,000,000.

The €500,000 Guaranteed Big Wrap Main Event

The Big Wrap Main Event comes with a more affordable yet still substantial €2,350 buy-in, and an enticing €500,000 guaranteed prize pool. There are several €330 buy-in satellites taking place at Kings Resorts before and while the Main Event is running if you want to take a shot at the big time.

This exact tournament previously ran from March 31 and saw 199 players re-enter 101 times, creating a €627,000 prize pool as a result. An anonymous player came out on top and turned their €2,350 investment into a €132,600 haul.

Bounty hunters will be pleased to learn there are two bounty events scheduled. One is a €2,200 buy-in €100,000 guaranteed 5-Card PLO tournament with €1,000 bounties on the heads of each player. The other may be a little out of most players’ reach because it commands a €25,000 buy-in, and has €10,000 bounties throughout!

Do Not Make These Five Common PLO Mistakes

The Full Big Wrap Schedule

There Even More Poker Action Coming to Kings

It is not only The Big Wrap taking place at Kings Resort in the coming months because there are several prestigious events in the pipeline.

Straight after The Big Wrap, the World Series of Poker International Circuit heads to the casino, bringing with it 12 ring-awarding events, including a €1 million guaranteed €1,700 buy-in Main Event. The WSOPC runs from September 21 through October 1.

Later in October, from the 25th through November 16, the 2023 WSOP Europe festival stops by. The full schedule is still being put together, but expect a massive Main Event, in addition to €25,000 and €50,000 buy-in events!

Stay tuned to PokerNews in the coming weeks and months for more news and all the juicy details emanating from Kings Resort.

The second winner of a Pot-Limit Omaha High Roller Event of the 2023 World Series of Poker has been crowned at the Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas. Out of a staggering field of 499 entries in Event #57: $25,000 Pot-Limit Omaha High Roller, PLO specialist Ka Kwan Lau defeated Sergio Martinez Gonzalez in heads-up as both Spanish-speaking four-card aficionados earned the biggest slice of the $10,551,500 prize pool.

It was the biggest prize pool for a Pot-Limit Omaha live poker event in the history of the WSOP and Lau sealed the victory two years after he came up one spot shy of earning his maiden WSOP gold bracelet in the very same tournament. Known under his online moniker of “kaju85”, he is one of the most-feared players in PLO tournaments on the live and online poker circuit. He was born in Spain and has a Hong Kong passport as well but quickly became an integral part of the close-knit Spanish poker community ever since entering the live poker scene back in 2010.

Lau resides in Andorra and that’s where he will be heading to in a few days from now because the birth of his second daughter is imminent. He will even skip the upcoming $50,000 Pot-Limit Omaha High Roller as well as the remainder of the 2023 WSOP to be home with his family. Lau’s return to Europe will be sweetened with the top prize of $2,294,756 and his first bracelet, while Martinez Gonzalez received a consolation prize of $1,418,270.

Andjelko Andrejevic came into the final day as the shortest stack but laddered to third place ahead of Roger Teska and Mads Amot. All five of the finalists were competing for their maiden WSOP victory in the Horseshoe Event Center, and Lau has further cemented his status as one of the best PLO players.

Final Table Result Event #57: $25,000 Pot-Limit Omaha High Roller

Winner’s Reaction

“I feel great. It feels like I have been missing something, and now it is complete … I am very happy with that. I came here two years ago to win the bracelet. I can’t really say yet how happy I am not,” an overwhelmed Lau said after the frenetic celebrations with his Spanish rail were done and the winner shots had been taken care of.

Lau is arguably one of the most accomplished PLO tournament players, and his strategy for success seems rather simple.

“My secret is to grind a lot. I love poker and push hard,” he said with a big grin on his face.

He also competes in No-Limit Hold’em tournaments once in a while as well and had a deep run in the 2016 WSOP Main Event, where he collected $269,430 for his 20th-place finish. However, the four-card variant has very much been his bread and butter for more than a decade now.

“My game in No-Limit is very poor. I just play a couple of tournaments. When I have no games or nothing better to do, I play probably one tournament of No-Limit Hold’em,” the Spaniard admitted.

With two times as many cards, he is a force to be reckoned with, and the number of entries in each of the PLO events has been growing by a lot during the 2023 WSOP, very much to the delight of the Spaniard.

“PLO is getting more and more popular. The number [in this event] speaks for itself. I didn’t come the last year, but people told me that it is almost double the field, and that is a lot. Also, in the 10K, the field was up a lot. I think the game is getting more popular.”

Another high-stakes event in his preferred four-card variant is just around the corner with Event #71: $50,000 Pot-Limit Omaha High Roller, which gets underway on June 30, 2023, but other PLO specialists may be relieved that Lau won’t be among the participants.

“I will miss the tournament. I am waiting for my second daughter and she is going to come in a week or ten days. I think it is a great moment to come back home and be with my wife and my daughter. It is okay for this year, I will just relax and see how my daughter grows but next year it is very probable that I will come here again with them.”

Action of the Final Day

The final day recommenced with five players remaining and Lau in the driver’s seat, while fellow Spanish-speaking Martinez Gonzalez was in distinct second place. Lau suffered a minor setback when Andrejevic extracted value with a full house, but he more than made up for it soon after.

In a large clash with the third-biggest stack Amot, Lau flopped an open-ended straight and flush draw against the middle set of the Norwegian. The turn was a blank, but the river brought another spade without pairing the board to vault Lau into a commanding lead.

Next to go was one of the two short stacks when Teska put his hopes on the top two pair and a gutshot. However, he was drawing very thin against the flopped wheel of Martinez Gonzalez and bricked the river to reduce the field to the final three after fewer than 90 minutes of play.

Andrejevic kept his short stack afloat with a double against Martinez Gonzalez but still had a mountain to climb for a shot at the title. The big lead of Lau was then decimated to just a handful of big blinds when Martinez Gonzalez earned value from a superior full house, which had the potential to shift the momentum.

The Serbian stuck around for a while but never pulled away from the bottom of the leaderboard by some margin. He eventually made a stand with double-suited queens against the pocket aces of Martinez Gonzalez in a preflop contest. Both players flopped a set, and Andrejevic didn’t catch the miracle one-outer to bow out in third place for nearly $1 million in prize money.

Heads-up play between Lau and Martinez Gonzalez started with an incredible average of 84 big blinds, as the final two contenders were separated by just two big blinds with a pay jump of more than $800k and the WSOP gold bracelet on the line. It would only take fewer than two hours to determine a winner, however, and it was Lau who came out on top.

Martinez Gonzalez started pulling away in the first half of the heads-up duel and was just one card away from victory. His nut flush draw, however, missed and Lau doubled into a narrow lead with the nut straight. It was a pivotal turning point as Lau regained his composure after having been frustrated previously, and he raked in several big pots in quick succession to jump into a commanding lead.

Ultimately, they got it in preflop with naked aces for Martinez Gonzalez against a double-suited Broadway run-down of Lau, and the latter rivered a straight to finish the job he missed out on two years ago in Las Vegas.

The 2023 World Series of Poker at its home at Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas has crowned a new champion. Moldova’s Pavel Plesuv has won his first bracelet for himself and his country after he was the last player standing in Event #53: $1,500 Millionaire Maker No-Limit Hold’em. Although this is his first bracelet, Plesuv has found high success in prior WSOP events.

With the victory, Plesuv secured his biggest live cash to date. He stormed through the field of bracelet winners and went wire-to-wire on the final day to capture the $1,201,564 up top. Plesuv outmanoeuvred 10,429 other entrants over five days to claim the biggest slice of the $13,905,360 prize pool.

Plesuv was supported by a rail of friends and family as he seemed unstoppable, marching his way to the bracelet.

Event #37: $1,500 Millionaire Maker Final Table Results

Winner’s Reaction

“It feels amazing…I had some deep runs at the WSOP but no bracelets. So, it’s really nice to win my first bracelet in such a big field, and for such a big amount, my best cash. It feels amazing.” Plesuv told PokerNews after the triumph.

“Keep studying and keep believing in your dreams,”

“First of all, I will pay my taxes,” Plusev explained when asked what he was going to do with his seven-figure score. “Second, I will have some beer and a party, and I will continue supporting Ukraine and people in need. Maybe I’ll buy a house. We will see,” he added.

When asked if he felt there was a tipping point or hand that was crucial to his win of the tournament.

“Follow your passion, and the results will come,”

“Honestly, I don’t have this feeling that I will definitely win. The stacks were pretty shallow, and it is swingy. If I lose this A♦2♦ vs A♣A♠ hand, I will not be the chip leader. I’d say the turning point where I got the chip lead and was far ahead of the others was at two tables on the second feature table. We got big stacks there close to each other, and I was getting good hands in good spots to accumulate some chips.”

Rounding out the winner’s interview, Plesuv gave inspiring words for all the recreational players and grinders out there.

“Keep studying and keep believing in your dreams. Follow your passion, and the results will come. Don’t let results affect your life too much. You can extract a lot of good things, even when you have a losing streak.”

Recap of the Day

The day started with Andreas Kniep putting the pressure on the rest of the table, and the first elimination could be credited to Kniep he beat Vitor De Souza Countinho in a flip to him. This eliminated the Brazilian in seventh place for $222,749.

The next casualty was Myles Mullaly, who saw himself on the wrong end of a two outer.

Anton Smirnov was departed next. He lost a flip to be eliminated in fifth place for $373,524. Shortly after, Plesuv coolered Kniep out of contention after cracking the latter’s aces.

https://twitter.com/PokerGO/status/1674190732473819136

Paul Gunness was eliminated in third place for $650,058. His Ace high hand lost a flip against Plesuv

The heads-up battle was a short affair, and on the final hand of the night, Plesuv bested the pocket jacks held by Florian Ribouchon to seal the victory.

The 2023 World Series of Poker (WSOP) is hosting 20 online bracelets – up from 13 last year – awarded on WSOP.com in the merged network of New Jersey and Nevada.

While PokerNews is offering live updates from those tournaments, the segregated markets of Pennsylvania and Michigan are also each awarding seven bracelets.

While we’re not able to offer live updates from those tournaments, we will be bringing you recaps for all the bracelet winners from Wolverine and Keystone States.

Below is a look at the latest winners from Michigan and Pennsylvania.

A Look at the 2023 WSOP Online Bracelet Schedule – How to Deposit

Christopher Nunez Pennsylvania’s Latest Online Bracelet Winner

On Sunday, June 25, the fourth Pennsylvania online bracelet of the summer was awarded. Event #4: $500 Mystery Bounty attracted 127 players who rebought 90 times. The 217-entry field resulted in a $138,150 prize pool that was paid out to the top 36 finishers.

Among those to cash but fall short of the final table were Michael McNeil (10th – $2,260), Kyle “LetMeWin3437” Gross (18th – $6,013), Ilya Soyfer (21st – $1,004), Simon Levy (25th – $1,145) and Shawn Dullavin (27th – $995).

After nearly ten hours of play, it was Christopher “WINPOTS247” Nunez defeating Clinton “Cbranchen07” Branchen in heads-up play to win the tournament for $18,714 and his first online gold bracelet.

Last week’s WSOP Online PA bracelet winner Justin “yumdubz” Vaysman also secured another good score and finished in fifth-place for $5,157. He also ended up with the biggest payout from the tournament as he collected $23,194 in Mystery Bounty prizes for a final payday of $28,351.

WSOP Online PA Event #4 Final Table Results

A Look at All the 2022 WSOP Online Michigan Bracelet Winners

David Ferus Wins Fourth MI Bracelet of the Summer

The Michigan edition of the Mystery Bounty WSOP Online event saw 133 players rebuy 75 times, which resulted in a 208-entry field that awarded its $127,350 prize pool to the top 36 finishers.

Following more than nine hours of play, it was David “NoEndgame” Ferus defeating Shivprasad “The3MonK” Nomula in heads-up play to win the tournament for $16,422 for his first online gold bracelet. It was also just his second cash under the WSOP umbrella.

Like in Pennsylvania, the big winner of the day was not the last player standing. “theeeburger” managed to ladder to fourth place for $6,265 but also found the $20,000 top mystery bounty prize. He racked up $21,270 in bounty pulls for $27,535 to be added to his bankroll.

WSOP Online Michigan Event #4 Final Table Results

Remaining Michigan/Pennsylvania Schedule

Back in 2021, the WSOP offered gold online bracelet events in the segregated Pennsylvania market. In 2022, the WSOP expanded its online bracelet offering into Michigan with eight events.

In 2023, WSOP.com will offer seven online bracelets each in their segregated markets in Michigan and Pennsylvania. The events and schedule are the same in both markets.

Editor & Live Reporter

Calum has been a part of the PokerNews team since September 2021 after working in the UK energy sector. He played his first hand of poker in 2017 and immediately fell in love with the game. Calum’s proudest poker achievement is winning the only tournament he has ever played in Las Vegas, the prestigious $60 Flamingo evening event.

Eric “Barstool Nate” Nathan had quite the adventure — injury, lost ID, the whole nine yards — getting to Las Vegas for the 2023 World Series of Poker (WSOP). PokerNews caught up with the Barstool Sports personality to hear his story of why he’s just now arriving at the WSOP.

The co-host of the Cracking Aces poker podcast is competing in Event #65: $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em, his first bracelet event of the summer. Originally, the sports blogger and long-time poker player intended to grind a lengthy WSOP schedule, starting early in the series. So, why’s he just now making his way to Sin City to play some cards?

“This was the year, I was going to play the full summer, I made this big (PokerStake staking) package, I got an AirBNB,” Nathan said. “And then a week before my flight, I shattered my foot into a million pieces.”

The Barstool employee arrived at the WSOP with a boot on his foot and is walking around in crutches. He explained that the fluke injury occurred when he stepped out of an Uber ride and “just demolished my foot.”

“I broke five bones and I had to cancel my AirBNB,” he explained.

Finally Made it to the World Series of Poker

Miraculously, the poker enthusiast has been able to avoid surgery. He said the foot is healing naturally, although it will take quite some time before he’s walking comfortably again. But the injury hampered his ability to make it to the WSOP and play the full summer like he hoped.

At the WSOP Main Event last year, Nathan infamously left Las Vegas having bluffed off his stack with a pair of fours and a flush draw. That left a sour taste in his mouth and he couldn’t wait to get back. Unfortunately, for the Washington D.C. sports enthusiast, his wait to return to the felt at the WSOP was even longer than anticipated.

The frustration didn’t stop with the foot injury. Barstool Nate ran into some shenanigans a week before his second attempt at traveling to Las Vegas. He lost his identification and had one heck of a time getting a new one so that he could hop on a plane and head out across the country from New York to the World Series of Poker.

Nathan’s Cracking Aces co-host, Ben Mintz, was fired from Barstool Sports prior to the start of the WSOP. As such, he no longer appears on the podcast and is currently doing some reporting work for PokerGO.

Barstool Nate said he originally planned to play approximately 17 bracelet events prior to the injury. He now expects to play around six, depending on how many Day 2’s he reaches, including the Main Event, and has sold action on PokerStake.

At the time of publishing, the Cracking Aces co-host was up to 73,000 chips from his 50,000-chip starting stack on the second break of the day. So, he’s off to a strong start but registration is still open and, according to Nathan, “this is the year that I don’t punt” at the WSOP. We’ll check back in a couple weeks to see if he holds true to that prediction.

The seventh edition of the Kings of Tallinn Summer Showdown runs at the Olympic Park Casino and the adjacent Hilton Tallinn Park from July 21-30, and we predict it is going to go down a storm.

The Summer Showdown looks to build on a hugely successful 2023 Kings of Tallinn festival, which ran in late February, by inviting players worldwide to compete across 53 events.

Renowned tournament director Teresa Nousiainen has spent countless hours creating an action-packed schedule of events that has something for everyone. Each event’s structure has been designed from the ground up to ensure poker enthusiasts from all around the world are treated to a phenomenal poker experience.

Having looked at the Kings of Tallinn Summer Showdown schedule, PokerNews is most impressed. There is not only a wide range of buy-ins, from €60 to €5,000, but the variety of formats and poker variants rivals what would usually be reserved for series’ held in Las Vegas.

Priit Parmasto Takes Down Record-Breaking Kings of Tallinn Main Event

There are mystery bounties, progressive bounties, Pot-Limit Omaha, No-Limit Hold’em/Pot Limit Omaha Mix, 8-Game, Pot-Limit Finnish 5-Card Stud, and the incredibly exciting Sviten Special.

Although challenging and unfair to pick a single Summer Showdown tournament from the amazing schedule, PokerNews must say that the €1,100 NLHE Main Event is the event everyone will have their eye on.

When a similar tournament ran at the 2023 Kings of Tallinn festival, 716 entrants ensured the €500,000 guarantee was blown clean out of the water, with €673,040 awarded. Estonian grinder Priit Parmasto was the player that came out on top, and they banked €90,000 after a three-way deal involving Petteri Laiho (€102,500), and Antti Vetelainen (€90,000).

Olympic Entertainment Group Poker Director Christer Larsson cannot wait to welcome back thousands of poker players from far and wide.

“The Tallinn Summer Showdown is the most popular poker festival in Northern Europe during the summer as it offers amazing poker action with 53 events designed by world-renowned tournament director Teresa Nousiainen and a fun vibe for both recreational and professional poker players.”

“The festival offers something for everyone thanks to the many different poker formats at a variety of buy-ins, a team competition, cash games running around the clock, and a four-day Main Event that can’t be missed. The weather in Tallinn during the summer is fantastic for players that wish to take a break from the poker action with the sun nearly always shining day and night.”

Full Kings of Tallinn Summer Showdown Schedule

Kristian Zitting Wins Tallinn Summer Showdown Main Event (€56,500)

Popular Team Competition Returns

It is worthwhile traveling to the Kings of Tallinn Summer Showdown with friends, or at least making some new friends on the ground once you arrive in Estonia. Why? Because the Team Competition is in play throughout the series.

The Team Competition is free to enter, and sees 2% of the prize pools from qualifying events reserved for it. The best five performing teams win a share of the pot, with the winning team banking 40% of the prize pool, the runner-up reeling in 25%, third place 15%, with the fourth and fifth-place finishers each scooping 10%.

Your team cannot have more than four players, and you gain points by cashing in qualifying events, which are made clear at the venue. The organisers love this team element so much that they are offering participating teams free custom T-shirts if you register your squad!

Don’t worry if you are traveling alone or only have a couple of people in your team, there will be help on hand at the Olympic Park Casino so you can fill your quota and stand a chance of banking some additional prize money, all why making some poker friends for life!

In what might be the most anticipated High Stakes Duel match of them all, Daniel Negreanu and Doug Polk will rematch on the PokerGO heads-up show starting with the $200,000 pot round in August.

The official date hasn’t been determined, but it will take within weeks following the conclusion of the 2023 World Series of Poker (WSOP). Negreanu defeated Eric Persson in Round 1 of High Stakes Duel 4 back in May, a $50,000-per-player buy-in, but his opponent declined a rematch.

“DNegs” won his first match on the heads-up poker show for the first time in four tries. He lost three consecutive games to Phil Hellmuth in 2021 before the winner cashed out. High Stakes Duel’s structure calls for the stakes to be doubled each round, starting with $100,000 and potentially all the way up to $12.8 million if the players are willing to go that far.

Since Negreanu won Round 1 against Persson, he automatically advanced to Round 2. Although the replacement player is different, Polk is a familiar opponent for the Poker Hall of Famer.

Three years ago, the then bitter rivals battled in one of the most highly publicized heads-up challenges in poker history, but all but the first session took place online. Polk would go on to win the 25,000-hand battle at $200/$400 no-limit hold’em stakes by $1.2 million.

More Competitive in Rematch?

This time around, the structure and mood will be quite different. That’s because High Stakes Duel uses a sit-n-go format, and the competitors no longer despise each other and are now friends.

Polk, who gained respect for his opponent during that highly-publicized competition, is considered one of the best heads-up poker players of all-time. Negreanu, on the other hand, had minimal heads-up cash game experience when the two faced off. But Polk admits the rising blinds structure on High Stakes Duel minimizes his edge.

For now, however, Negreanu will continue to be focused on the World Series of Poker. He’s attempting to end a 10-year drought without a bracelet. After losing $1.1 million last summer at the WSOP, he’s down more than $800,000 this year at about the two-thirds mark in the series. Polk competed in just one event — Event #8: $25,000 Heads-Up No-Limit Hold’em Championship — and took second place for $313,362. He did, however, lose nearly $1 million days prior on Hustler Casino Live’s historic $1 million buy-in game.

_{*Images courtesy of PokerGO.}