The 2022 Five Diamond World Poker Clasic at Bellagio kicked off at the end of the first week of October. The festival is centered around the marquee $5 million guaranteed $10,400 buy-in World Poker Tour main event, but there are also a variety of high roller events on offer. Four such high-stakes poker tournaments have already concluded, each won by a highly-accomplished professional.
The first high roller on the schedule was a $25,000 buy-in no-limit hold’em tournament that ran on Saturday, Oct. 8. The event drew a small but tough field of nine entries, creating a prize pool of $225,000.
In the end, two-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner and longtime Card Player columnist Steve Zolotow came away with the title, defeating bracelet winner Mikita Badziakouski heads-up to secure the title and the top prize of $135,000. This was the fourth-largest score of Zolotow’s storied career. It increased his lifetime tournament earnings to more than $3.4 million.
Badziakouski was awarded $90,000 as the runner-up, growing his lifetime total to just shy of $40.6 million. This was his 10th PokerGO Tour cash of the year, with two wins and more than $4.2 million in qualified earnings. The 54 PGT points he earned for this performance were enough to see him climb into ninth place on the overall leaderboard.
| Place | Player | Earnings |
| 1 | Steve Zolotow | $135,000 |
| 2 | Mikita Badziakouski | $90,000 |
The second high roller on the schedule did not run, but the third did. A total of 15 entries were made in the $10,000 buy-in no-limit hold’em event, creating a $150,000 prize pool.
The top three finishers ultimately divvied up that money, with the largest share going to three-time bracelet winner and WPT champion Nick Schulman. Schulman cut a heads-up deal with recent Poker Masters Purple Jacket winner Sean Winter that saw him secure the title and $68,256. Schulman now sits just shy of $15 million in lifetime cashes. He has made the money in nine events since the start of September, with those cashes alone accounting for $585,000 of his career total.
Winter earned $57,744 as the runner-up, bringing his lifetime earnings to more than $23 million. This was his 18th PGT cash of the year, with more than $3.5 million in earnings accrued across those scores. Winter now sits in sixth place in that points race as a result.
Three-time bracelet winner and three-time Super High Roller Bowl champion Justin Bonomo finished third for $24,000. Bonomo was not yet done adding to his tournament resume at this series, though.
| Place | Player | Earnings |
| 1 | Nick Schulman | $68,256 |
| 2 | Sean Winter | $57,744 |
| 3 | Justin Bonomo | $24,000 |
Next up on the agenda was the $10,000 buy-in eight-game event. Twelve mixed-game aficionados ponied up the five-figure buy-in to create a prize pool of $120,000. As with the previous event, the top three finishers made the money. The largest share was captured by five-time bracelet winner Eli Elezra. The Poker Hall of Fame member earned $57,000 after striking a heads-up deal with fellow Hall of Famer and PokerGO president Mori Eskandani, who locked up $53,000 before the final two decided to play on for the trophy.
Eskandani got all-in preflop in pot-limit Omaha with A664 facing the AK52 of Elezra. Eskandani bit bottom set on a Q86 flop. The 2 kept him in the lead, but the 10 on the river gave Elezra the ace-high flush and the pot. Eskandani was left on fumes heading into the next game: deuce-to-seven triple draw. In his final hand, he got all-in before the draws and made a 9-8-7-5-4, but it was no good against the 7-6-4-3-2 of Elezra.
Five-time bracelet winner Brian Rast was the third-place finisher, earning $10,000 to surpass $23.1 million in lifetime cashes.
| Place | Player | Earnings |
| 1 | Eli Elezra | $57,000 |
| 2 | Mori Eskandani | $53,000 |
| 3 | Brian Rast | $10,000 |
The game returned to no-limit hold’em for the next high roller on the schedule, with 16 entries at $10,000 building a $160,000 prize pool. The top three finishers made the money, with a classic preflop race bursting the money bubble. Two-time bracelet winner Jim Collopy’s A-K was unable to outrun the pocket nines of Yasuhiro Waki.
Despite winning that flip, Waki was the next to hit the rail. He lost a big chunk of his stack with a wheel against a flush for Justin Bonomo. He then got the last of his stack in with pocket jacks leading Bonomo’s K-8, but two eights came off the deck by the river to give Bonomo trips. Wakiearned $25,600 as the third-place finisher.
With that, Bonomo took a healthy lead into heads-up play with bracelet winner and 2019 Card Player Player of the Year award winner Stephen Chidwick. The two highly-accomplished high-stakes stars opted to strike a deal rather than play on, though, with Bonomo taking the title and $75,792 while Chidwick earned $58,608 as the runner-up.
Bonomo added to his lead on poker’s all-time money list, increasing his career earnings to a staggering $60,562,613. Chidwick remains in fourth place on that leaderboard with $44,647,605 in career cashes.
| Place | Player | Earnings |
| 1 | Justin Bonomo | $75,792 |
| 2 | Stephen Chidwick | $58,608 |
| 3 | Yasuhiro Waki | $25,600 |
Player photo credits: PokerGO / Antonio Abrego.
