Can a poker player possibly win $40 million in one year? Though the thought sounds preposterous, Erik Seidel is actually on pace to win that much money in 2011, having just wrapped up a January that saw him take home a whopping $3.4 million.
As opposed to your “typical” multimillion-dollar poker win, which would ordinarily happen by finishing in the top 5 or so of the World Series of Poker Main Event, Seidel’s impressive haul happened the “hard way”, as he cashed big in 3 separate events in 2 hemispheres!
Fresh off his induction last year to poker’s hall of fame, the 8-time WSOP bracelet winner started his sick run with a 4th place finish at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure $25,000 High Roller event in the Bahamas. One of only 16 players to cash in the elite 151-player field, Seidel’s $300,000 payday would be enough for most poker players to call it a great year! Seidel, however, could already hear Australia calling his name.
Just 1 week after his impressive showing at the PCA, Seidel again made a deep run, finishing 3rd of 38 players at the Aussie Millions $100,000 challenge to walk away with another $625,000. Yet, after winning almost $1 million in the span of a week, incredibly, it was just a couple appetizers to a main course yet to come.
For his final act of poker brilliance, on January 26th Seidel outlasted the entire elite field of 20 players to win the $250,000 Aussie Millions Super High Roller event. For his incredible set of achievements, aside from $3.4 million extra in his bank account, Seidel also made his debut on ESPN’s “Nuts” list of the current top 10 poker pros.
Seemingly, the only thing going against Seidel right now is that February only has 28 days in it for him to try and repeat the performance…
