Home / Poker News December 2011 / 2011’s Best Poker Stories – Erik Seidel’s Revival
2011’s Best Poker Stories – Erik Seidel’s Revival
Posted by: James Carter. - Thu, 2011-12-29 16:16
Erik Seidel was one of those old-school poker pros who – although respected and thought highly of by all his peers – was slowly beginning to enter the class of poker players rendered obsolete by the onslaught of the
online poker generation. If that was the case indeed, someone forgot to tell Seidel though. 2011 proved to be one of the best years of the 52-year old poker pro’s career. He amassed no less than $6.5 million in tournament winnings, cementing his spot atop poker’s all-time winning list with $17 million logged in profits.
The year started off on the right foot for Seidel: he got rolling in January with a 3rd place finish in a PCA PLO event on the 10th. He went on to win the PCA High Roller event for a prize of $295.9k some days later.
The strong start got him wanting more, and a week later he flew over to Australia to take part in the Aussie Millions high roller events. In the $100k High Roller event, he finished 3rd, grabbing a prize of $600k. He won the $250k Super High Roller event hands down, taking home the biggest single prize of his career: a $2.7 million haul.
He eventually finished the first month of the year close to $4 million richer. He wasn’t done though. In February, he played in the WPT’s LA Poker Classic, making a final table and winning another high roller event to land in second place on the all-time winners’ list.
At the NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship, later that same month, Seidel added yet another victory to his tally, besting a 64 player starting field for a top prize of $750k. That win propelled him past Daniel Negreanu on the all time winners’ list.
The year was far from over profit-wise for the poker pro though. At the WPT’s Hollywood Poker Open, he finished second. He then failed to even make a final table at the WSOP, but proceeded to cash big in several EPL events.
