Late Monday night, Joao Simão became the first South American ever to win a Super High Roller Bowl event, winning the illustrious Super High Roller Bowl X for $1,100,000. The Brazilian topped a 23-entry field in the PokerGO Studio in Las Vegas, outlasting Jason Koon in an intense heads-up battle to claim the title.
A lower buy-in for 2025
This year’s edition had a little less luster than usual, with the buy-in lowered from its usual $300,000 to $100,000. This was the first change to the buy-in since the Super High Roller Bowl debuted with a $500,000 buy-in back in 2015.
Despite the lowered buy-in, most of poker’s endbosses still gathered to play the event, with 16 players joining for Day 1 of the three-day event. Jason Koon was the lone player to bag a seven-figure stack on the first day, with players like Nick Petrangelo, Brandon Wilson, Jeremy Ausmus, Ben Tollerene, and Umang Dattani all failing to advance.
Day 2 drama
On Day 2, seven more players entered the tournament before the close of registration. Players like Alex Foxen, Bryn Kenney, Dan Smith, Thomas Boivin, Stephen Chidwick, Daniel Rezaei, and Andrew Lichtenberger battled it out all day, but none of them made it through to the end of the day.
In the end, five players progressed to the third and final day, with only four getting paid. The lucky five? Sam Soverel, Koon, Simão, Nick Schulman, and Jun Obara.
Final day theatrics
Although Obara has had an incredible year, with nine of his top-10 career cashes coming in 2025, he would be the unfortunate bubble boy at SHRB X. Despite being the Day 3 chip leader at one point, he lost all but three blinds after running his pocket kings into Soverel’s pocket aces. He would be dispatched shortly thereafter as his queen-jack couldn’t beat Simão’s ace-deuce.
With everybody guaranteed at least $200,000, it appeared it was going to be a long battle to the end, with all four competitors sitting on 30-60 big blinds. However, it would only take a single hand to reduce the field from four to three after Nick Schulman suddenly hit the rail.
Soverel opened king-nine suited from the button and Schulman three-bet with ace-queen offsuit from the small blind. Koon woke up with pocket jacks in the big blind and put out a small four-bet. After Soverel folded, Schulman committed his 30 big-blind stack, and Koon snapped him off. Though Schulman flopped a queen, Koon flopped a set of jacks to give himself a 92% chance of winning the hand. With the part-time PokerGO commentator drawing thin, the seven of diamonds on the turn had him drawing stone dead, and he departed in fourth for $200,000.
About two hours later, after a very back-and-forth session, Soverel exited in third place in brutal fashion. Koon jammed a little over 23 big blinds effective from the small blind with ace-eight offsuit, and Soverel woke up with pocket tens. Despite the huge advantage, three hearts came on the board, giving Koon a flush draw and a 44% chance to win the hand. A three of hearts turn gave Koon his flush, and Soverel left with a disappointing $350,000 payday.
The never-ending heads-up battle
Koon started the heads-up battle with a two-to-one chip lead, though an extremely long battle was on the cards, as Koon had 110 big blinds while the Brazilian Simão still had 60 bigs to play with. However, nobody could have expected heads-up play to go on for as long as it did. Following an incredible back-and-forth display that went on for over five hours, a winner was finally crowned.
Koon limped pocket fives off of an 18 big blind stack, and Simão, working with 51 big blinds, found pocket eights. He raised to 3.25 big blinds, and Koon jammed. Simão snap-called and was in prime position to win the title.
The board ran out a clean Q-7-3-2-T, and Koon immediately congratulated Simão, wishing him a Merry Christmas. Triton Poker’s all-time leading winner walked out with an impressive $650,000, while Simão continued his unbelievably hot run, earning his second-career seven-figure score. It was only 10 days prior that Simão won the $150,000 Triton No-Limit Hold’em Eight Max tournament at WSOP Paradise for $3,067,000 for his first Triton title and his third-career bracelet.
References
PokerGo Tour: https://www.pgt.com
