Seat 2: Steffen Sontheimer (Germany) - 1,354,000
Heading into the inaugural Poker Masters at ARIA Resort and Casino, few people were talking about Steffen Sontheimer. To most, he was just another German, and arguably the least known from that contingent. Now, the man who celebrated his 27th birthday last week is the talk of the town and primed to become the first Master of Poker.
Sontheimer, known as “Goose” by his friends and on Twitter @RunGo0seRun, may be new to you, but he’s certainly not new to poker. In fact, coming into the Poker Masters he had $3,551,390 in tournament earnings, and all of that has come since June 2015.
His best score to date was $1,223,264 for finishing runner-up to his countryman, Christian Christner, in May’s ARIA Super High Roller 19 $100,000 Super High Roller. Other highlights on his relatively new résumé include winning the 2017 Poker EM €25,000 Super High Roller for $501,183, sixth in the PokerStars Championship Monte Carlo €100,000 Super High Roller for $415,348, and sixth in this summer’s Triton Super High Roller Series Budva for $313,423.
Consider this amazing fact – coming into the Poker Masters, Sontheimer had 27 documented tournament cashes, of which 14 have come in High Rollers events.
Over the last week, he’s added $1,221,000 to that total after finishing fourth in the Poker Masters Event #1 for $204,000, and the following day winning Event #2 for $900,000. In Event #3, he barely missed the money bubbling in eighth place, and today in Event #4 he finished fifth for $117,00 to extend his Poker Masters lead.
That makes Sontheimer, who now resides in Brighton, UK, the odds-on favorite to win The Poker Masters Purple Jacket™, but it's really anyone's game as the $1,512,000 first-place prize in Event #5 means each of the remaining players are drawing live.
It’s also worth noting that Sontheimer is one of the players who bet Daniel Negreanu that he’d win the Poker Masters. If he does, he’ll receive an additional $50,000 from “Kid Poker.”