iStockphoto / grinvalds
Justin Bonomo captured the Poker Masters 2023 title for Event #9: $25,000 No-Limit Hold’em. He went wire-to-wire at the final table, coming into Day 2 with close to half of the chips in play, and beat Daniel Rezeai heads-up to earn $333,000 and 200 PGT points.
Everyone within the poker world knows who Justin Bonomo us. Bonomo is 2nd on the all-time poker money list with $62,395,482 in career live poker earnings, just slightly trailing Bryn Kenney who has $65,036,892 in live poker earnings.
Yet despite being one of the best-known figures in the industry, he missed poker’s TV Boom and isn’t a household name like Daniel Negreanu or Phil Hellmuth. ESPN would’ve LOVED to have a clip like this one below from the days when they broadcast the World Series of Poker. But this clips comes to us by way of PokerGo which has been broadcasting all of the 2023 Poker Masters final tables.
Justin Bonomo With The ‘Hero Call’ Of The Year In 2023 Poker Masters
Let’s start by defining a ‘Hero Call’ in poker. A ‘Hero Call’ is when someone calls on the river despite having virtually nothing but a high card. They make the call under the assumption that their opponent is bluffing and a high card, typically an ace, is enough to win.
In this case, Justin Bonomo had his opponent dominated pre-flop with Ac8c to Daniel Rezaei’s Js8d. Bonomo was the short stack at this point and they were heads up for the title.
Rezaei called for $30K and Bonomo raised to $210K, Rezaei called the additional $150K. The flop came out 9s4s7d giving Daniel Rezaei an inside 7-J straight draw and a potential runner-runner backdoor flush draw with the spades. But Justin Bonomo was still 67% to win the hand with the Ace high.
Sensing an opportunity, Justin Bonomo led out for 300K in chips and Razaei called. Another 7 came on the turn, the 7 of clubs.
Instead of keeping his foot on the gas pedal, Bonomo opted to check on the turn to try and gain some information from his opponent. Rezaei sensed weakness and immediately bet 325K chips back into him. Something about that bet size must have raised Bonomo’s alarms and he made the call.
The 5 of diamonds peeled off on the river, a card that wouldn’t have helped either player based on what they’d been calling/betting with. Justin Bonomo checked and Razaei announced an ‘all-in’ that put Bonomo’s tournament life at risk because Razaei had him covered in chips.
After going into the tank, Justin Bonomo made the call with nothing but Ace High and it was enough to win the hand. From there, Bonomo never looked back and went on to win $333,000 and event #9 of the 2023 Poker Masters.
$333K is a drop of water in the bucket of Bonomo’s career poker earnings. His biggest cash to date was $10 million in the $1,000,000 No Limit Hold’em – The Big One for One Drop (Event #78) at the 2018 World Series of Poker. He has 10 career cashes for over $1 million according to the HendonMob database.
Bonomo is now 7th on the 2023 Poker Masters leaderboard with 314 PGT Points. Vladas Tamasauskas leads the Poker Masters field with 3 cashes and 2 wins for $506K and 506 PGT Points.