Fifty of the richest high rollers went to the Merit Royal Diamond in hopes of securing the prestigious Onyx High Roller Championship title. However, there could only be one winner, and it was Jean-Robert Bellande. The former Survivor star and the nosebleed cash regular secured a career-high $1.5 million top prize, defeating good friend Rob Yong in heads-up play.
Phone call out of nowhere
Jean-Robert Bellande (JRB) had no intention of playing the tournament and only found his way into the tournament courtesy of tournament founder Rob Yong. Yong was barely able to get to Cyprus in time and max-lated the event, finishing in second for a million dollars.
JRB was in Cyprus playing cash games and was chilling in his room when Yong called him.
“I wasn’t going to play,” Bellande told PokerNews after the win. By the way, zero chance I’m playing any high rollers. These guys are all superstars.
“But Rob’s plane got delayed, and he felt bad. So he told the guys, I’m putting in a fish. I’m putting JRB in to represent me in there.
“I got the phone call. I’m chilling in my room watching Netflix, and he said, ‘Hey, you want to play? I’m like, great, when’s the tournament? ‘It’s right now.” I’m like, what? Okay, let me get over there.
“To be honest with you, I haven’t looked at the schedule because I was just planning on playing all the cash games, but now that we had this result, I’ll have to. I feel like when people go on tournament runs, they tend to put two or three together. So I definitely want to take some stabs at some tournaments.”
One-on-one with Yong
Given that Yong put him into the tournament and that the two have been rivals on the cash game felt for years, this one was extra sweet for JRB.
“That was a nice little extra bonus. But, you know, it’s funny, because Rob is always busting balls and needling, but people don’t know what an amazing, amazing person he is.
“He has been determined to see me successful in spite of my own flaws and weaknesses. I promise you, even though he’s a little butthurt that I made those calls on him, he is as happy for me as I am for me.”
Tournament action
11 players, as well as a slew of max-late registrants, brought the number of entries up to 50 to match the $5 million guarantee at the beginning of the day.
JRB came into the nine-man final table as a massive chip leader but nearly didn’t make the money. Aerts one-outed JRB on the river that would have seen JRB move to nearly 21 million in chips and burst the money bubble. Instead, JRB found himself with 3.7 million and one of the shortest stacks.
Artur Martirosian was the stone bubble, missing out on a $200,000 payday, running his ace-queen into Rob Yong’s pocket aces.
From there, Gha Iakobishvili, Biao Ding, and Emilien Pitavy were eliminated in quick fashion to reduce the field to five. Bellande went down to just five big blinds but doubled up twice with nines against sixes and deuces against ten-eight to get back in the game.
Eventually, Yong and JRB got heads-up, with Yong about a two-to-one favorite. It wouldn’t take long for Bellande to be crowned the champion, as he picked off a pair of Yong’s bluffs to win it all.
Jean-Robert Bellande’s Hendon Mob will now move to over $4.5 million after the win and just his fourth tournament cash since the turn of the decade. His most recent cash was a 142nd-place finish in the WSOP Super Main Event, where he took home $80,000.
Final table results
| Place | Player | Country | Earnings |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jean-Robert Bellande | United States | $1,500,000 |
| 2 | Rob Yong | United Kingdom | $1,000,000 |
| 3 | Markkos Ladev | Estonia | $700,000 |
| 4 | Pieter Aerts | Belgium | $515,000 |
| 5 | Thomas Eychenne | France | $375,000 |
| 6 | Emilien Pitavy | France | $280,000 |
| 7 | Biao Ding | China | $230,000 |
| 8 | Gha Iakobishvili | Russia | $200,000 |
