Rainer Kempe Wins Super High Roller Bowl For $5M

The $300k buy-in Super High Roller Bowl was held at the Aria Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, with a total of 49 players turning up hoping to carve out a slice of the tournament’s $15 million guaranteed prize pool. Four days of intense action later, and it was German player Rainer Kempe who would eventually emerge a top of the field to capture the title, and walk away richer by a huge $5 million.
By the time the final table of seven had been set, Kempe was the chip leader with all the remaining players guaranteed at least $600,000 for their hard-fought efforts. Fedor Holz (A-9) then proceeded to eliminate Dan Shak (K-J) in 7th, before being dealt J-J and doing likewise to Bryn Kenney (7-7) in 6th.
Soon after, Rainer Kempe (7-7) then joined the fray by sending Matt Berkey (A-9) to the rail in 5th, followed by Phil Hellmuth in 4th, with the 14-times WSOP bracelet winner later tweeting:
“Finishing 4th, when I had 2.6 Mil in chips, Seidel had 600K, and I played super patiently, HURTS! Played well. Already in the gym…”
After Holz (A-10) then took care of Erik Seidel (A-7) in 3rd, the heads-up phase of the competition got underway between the two German players, Holz and Kempe, for the title. At this stage, Kempe held a 9.23m to 5.47m chip advantage over his remaining opponent, but several hours would pass before the deciding hand was played with Holz reraising all-in preflop holding pocket twos, only to be called by Kempe with pocket eights. The 10-9-5-4-3 which subsequently ensued sealed the deal, and so Holz then had to settle for a runner-up finish worth $3.5 million, while Rainer Kempe collected the biggest score of his professional career, while pushing his life-time earnings just shy of $7 million.
Final Table Results:
1: Rainer Kempe $5,000,000
2: Fedor Holz $3,500,000
3: Erik Seidel $2,400,000
4: Phil Hellmuth $1,600,000
5: Matt Berkey $1,100,000
6: Bryn Kenney $800,000
7: Dan Shak $600,000