Japan's Masa Kagawa is a regular in the largest buy-in poker events in the world. Finishing in the money today would be the largest score of Kagawa's career, topping the A$250,000 he won for taking third in the Aussie Millions $100,000 Challenge back in 2007.
Another notable score on his resumé came back in 2008 when Kagawa took seventh in the ￡20,000 High Roller at the European Poker Championships in London. There he won ￡86,000 for his finish.
In total, Kagawa has $654,732 in lifetime tournament winnings. He plays with fierce aggression and isn't afraid to mix things up in the game. One thing is for sure, Kagawa will not be timid when it comes to knocking heads with the other players at the table. He'll enter the day fifth overall in chips with 1.076 million.
The shortest stack entering the final table is Team PokerStars Pro Eugene Katchalov with 262,000. He may be the man bringing up the rear, but he's the only one carrying a Super High Roller title with him as back in 2011, Katchalov won the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure $100,000 Super High Roller for $1.5 million. In fact, Katchalov beat fellow final table player Daniel Negreanu for the title.
Although Katchalov has tournament results dating back to 2004, it wasn't until 2007 that he really made a name for himself with his first major win. At the end of that year, Katchalov won the World Poker Tour Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic for just under $2.5 million. The following summer, he showed that his victory was no fluke when he cashed five times at the World Series of Poker including one final table in the $10,000 World Championship Omaha Hi/Lo Split event.
After winning the PCA Super High Roller in 2011, Katchalov went on to win his first WSOP gold bracelet a few months later. He took down the $1,500 Seven Card Stud event at the Series for over $122,000 and nearly won a second bracelet that same year when he final tabled the $1,500 Limit Hold'em Shootout event.
Katchalov has over $7 million in live tournament earnings, but will have a bit of a ways to go if he wants to add to that here. A short stack coupled with a very tough final table surely isn't going to make this a walk in park for him.
Jonatha Duhamel is best known for winning the 2010 World Series of Poker Main Event, casing in for a massive $8.944 million score and the Team PokerStars Pro is having a ridiculously fantastic 2012 so far. He's already cashed for nearly $1.4 million and we're only four months into the year.
A Quebec native, Duhamel attended college at Universite du Quebec a Montreal, but the only studying he does now is at the poker table. Since his big WSOP win, Duhamel has proved he was no one-hit wonder and been racking up the results. Post-WSOP victory, Duhamel has pocketed nearly $2 million in prize money from all around the world.
In 2011, Duhamel won €200,000 in the EPT Deauville €10,000 High Roller by taking down the event and then he went on to finish fourth in the NBC National Heads-Up Championship a month later for $125,000.
In 2012, Duhamel crushed the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure to the tune of four cashes, all final tables and over $1.2 million in winnings. The largest score from there came with a second-place finish in the $25,000 High Roller for $634,500, but he also took fourth in the $100,000 Super High Roller for $313,600 and won the $5,000 No-Limit Hold'em for $239,830. Since the PCA, Duhamel recorded three more cashes including a second-place finish at the LA Poker Classic in the $5,100 No-Limit Hold'em event.
For most of Day 2, Duhamel was one of the larger stacks in this event, but some things didn't go his way and he finish on 654,000. That's good enough for sixth place overall to enter the day.
Daniel Negreanu is easily the most recognizable face in the game. He's also a Team PokerStars Pro, a four-time World Series of Poker gold bracelet winner, a two-time World Poker Tour champion and third overall on the all-time money list. He's also a member of the greatest soccer team on Earth, the Angle Shooters, but that's one of his lesser accolades.
With just a smidgen under $15 million in live tournament earnings and results that could fill a book, it's almost pointless for us to write this bio for Negreanu as it wouldn't do him justice.
On Day 1 of the event, Negreanu fell extremely short towards the end of the day and even toyed with the prospect of busting his stack just so he could re-enter and get more chips. He stayed patient, though, and has battled his way to this final table as a top-three stack.
Negreanu has already bubbled one massive buy-in event this year in the Aussie Millions $250,000 Challenge, but he also has two previous cashes in six-figure buy-in events. In 2011, he finished runner-up behind fell Team PokerStars Pro and tablemate here Eugene Katchalov in the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure $100,000 Super High Roller. He also took fifth in that same event the prior year. Those scores earned him $1 million and $250,900, respectively.
The largest score on Negreanu's record is from 2004 when he won the World Poker Tour Five Diamond World Poker Classic for over $1.77 million. Winning this event today would eclipse that and finishing in the top two would give him his fourth $1 million result.
Germany's Tobias Reinkemeier has over $2.3 million in live tournament winnings and is fifth on the German all-time money list. He's more of the silent killer on the felt, much like Patrik Antonius, and everyone in the poker world has nothing but good things to say about both his game and his personality.
In 2010, Reinkemeier earned his biggest live result when he won the EPT Grand Final €25,000 High Roller for €956,000. His next largest score came from an eighth-place finish in the Partouche Poker Tour Main Event in 2010 for €130,700. He also has a runner-up result from the World Poker Tour Vienna in 2011 and a sixth-place finish in the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure $25,000 High Roller from 2010.
Just a few days ago, Reinkemeier cashed in the EPT Berlin €10,000 High Roller that was won by fellow final table player Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier. Reinkemeier took fifth for €46,200 in that event.
Reinkemeier will enter the final table second in chips with 1.682 million. He's just slightly ahead of Daniel Negreanu, but worlds behind Justin Bonomo's chip lead.
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