The PokerGO Tour (PGT) $100K Super High Roller Bowl Mixed Games brought together a murderer's row of combatants, battling it out across a ten-game mix of variants.
With elite players – and big personalities – in the field, audience expectations were high. Unsurprisingly, the event delivered no shortage of high-level poker, nor any lack of entertainment.
In short, it was everything we had hoped for.
On Saturday, the final seven players reconvened in the PokerGO Studio to play down to a winner. While Brazil's Yuri Dzivielevski distinguished himself from his peers with an impressive display of mixed game dominance to claim the title, the PokerOrg Hand of the Week crown goes to Nick Schulman for the wizard-like fold he made at the final table – a consolation prize perhaps, but still a prize.
Oh, and a special shoutout goes to Jared Bleznick for continuing his now-standard schtick of opening packs of sports cards at any final table he reaches and including Schulman in the process. Without Bleznick, we wouldn't have moments like the one in the video linked below.
Schulman dodges a cooler
After sharpening his deck read skills through the sports card pack openings, Schulman looked down at 
in the big blind during a round of no-limit hold'em. With about eleven big blinds remaining, no one could fault him for wanting to play for all of it – even when facing an open from Robert Wells with 
and a three-bet behind from Chad Eveslage with 
.
It's a spot where 99.9% of players exit the tournament – and the 0.1% who don't typically have to hit a two-outer to stay alive.
But Schulman smelled a setup.
After burning through several time extensions and more than one sip of coffee, Schulman sent his cards into the muck. Whether it was a live read he picked up on Eveslage or just a gut feeling moment, Schulman dodged the cooler.
Ultimately, there was no butterfly effect derived from the fold – Schulman went on to bust in seventh-place without picking up any additional payout ladders – but the simple fact that he kept his tournament life intact and gave himself a shot to spin up his stack can't be overlooked.
We weren't the only ones impressed by Schulman's fold. In reporting his observations about the tournament, CoinPoker Ambassador and mixed games aficionado Patrick Leonard wrote: "Nick Schulman JJ fold was the play of the tournament. A theory fold, but under those circumstances mid sports pack pull, to put the pieces of the jigsaw together was extremely impressive."
With his $155,000 score, Schulman's career earnings on the PGT eclipsed the $10,000,000 mark – and moves like this one prove that he deserved every cent.
Featured image courtesy of Antonio Abrego/PokerGO Tour
