POWERFEST High Roller Round-Up: Wins for O’Dwyer; Tollerene and Two For Leonard

Steve O'Dwyer
Steve O’Dwyer

Taggers were hopping over electrified lines to squiggle on the side of coal hoppers unbeknown that the commodity owners were complaining to the rail hauliers that graffiti-covered wagons carried their product.
Steelworks stinking of dragon poop sent poison into the air through chimney stacks shaped like the cigars favoured by the giant who sang Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum while his harp played a phat tune.
And all the while I was being nominated Father of the Year.
I would round up my mates’ 7-8-year-old kids, stick them in the back of my car, fill their bellies with red liquorice shoestrings, and drive them to Jump, an indoor children’s play area with the outstanding Internet.
My buddies (and especially their wives) thought I was the business for playing with their kids.
“Are you sure?”
“Only if it’s no bother?”
“I wish Dave was like you xx.”
Little did they know, once I had taken the shoes off the kid’s foul-smelling, funky feet, I loaded up eight tables of $1/$2 No-Limit Hold’em cash games, and spent the next few hours doing my bollocks.
I loved it.
And I think of this, right now, while a little old lady plays with her pearl buttons, patiently waiting for her vegan mushroom burger loaded with butternut squash, avocado and chilli jam because I think it would have been rather cool to win close to a million bucks while I was doing that.
Like, Steve O’Dwyer.
POWERFEST Round-Up: O’Dwyer, Leonard, Astedt Oh MY
The last time I sent a thousand words into your face likes the shards of a bottle of Worcester sauce; I told you that O’Dwyer was all excited after finally winning a PokerStars’ World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) event.


O’Dwyer won $227,100.
If you follow O’Dwyer on Twitter, you’ll know that he doesn’t tweet often. The one you see above was his first since July.
Here is his second.


Yup, three days after setting a new personal best he smashed it like kids on a pinata full of Monster Munch.
O’Dwyer won the $25,500 buy-in, $3m Guaranteed Championship event, for $896,610, an incredible amount of money to be earned while sitting in your birthday suit eating Pot Noodles.
The win for O’Dwyer was the most significant of the series. There was no Main Event in the traditional sense, with partypoker preferring to schedule 20 Championship Events with buy-ins ranging from $1,050 to $25,500.
Here are some of the stories:
A hop, skip and a jump ago, I brought you news from the PokerStars European Poker Tour (EPT) Barcelona that Andras ‘probirs’ Nemeth had taken down the €25k Single Day High Roller for €605,600, and that he had done so a few months shy of winning a $25k High Roller at the PokerStars Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) earning $576,086. Well, the Hungarian was at it again, this time beating 195-entrants in Event #29 $5,200 buy-in $1m GTD Championship for $177,934.
Leon Tsoukernik plays host to some of the most significant private live cash games in the world, and the King’s Casino owner also won a Championship Event when he took down the $5,200 buy-in Event #16: $1m GTD Championship Event for $207,978, beating 204 entrants in the process.
PocketFives World #1, Niklas “Drulitooo” Astedt, also turned it on during POWERFEST. The Swedish scintillator beat 194 entrants in Event #62: $5,200 buy-in $1m GTD Championship Event for $203,900, and made the final table of at least two other Championship Events.
Two men who have been kicking arse in the high stakes realm for a decade are Ben “CowEyed” Tollerene and Sami “LarzLuzak1” Kelopuro and they both picked up POWERFEST titles with Tollerene taking down Event #95 $5,200 $1m GTD Championship event for $310,440, and Kelopuro beating 327 entrants in Event #142: $1m GTD Championship Event for $317,190.
The man you can thank for the new look POWERFEST schedule is Patrick Leonard, and the high stakes online and live star, was one of the stories of the series winning two events including beating 379-entrants in Event #42: $530 buy-in $200k GTD 6-Max PKO for $20,102, and defeating 305 entrants in Event #83 $300k GTD 6-Max PKO for a $34,796 payday.
669 events.
$69,106,263 in prize money against the $60m Guarantee
946,000 entrants
POWERFEST
It’s no wonder they capitalise it.