He's one of Brazil's top poker players, and earlier this month he showed exactly why after Bruno Foster took down the WPT Global Influencers Tournament for over $125,000.
In a 4-hour-long tournament, Foster overcame a field of 34 competitors composed of poker influencers from around the world and the winner of each influencer's qualifying freeroll. Foster was one of three Brazilians to take part and was joined by the founder and presenter of RegLife, Mário Junior, and one of the leading names in women's poker in Brazil, Fernanda Lopes.
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“It was surreal to win this tournament, I feel like I'm on cloud nine,” said Foster after his victory. “I had a difficult moment at the beginning of the tournament where I had to bluff a lot to keep myself alive, but then everything started to get better for me. I kept trying to manage pressure and squeeze all my opponents and it worked.
"There was a moment when I managed to double through Tom Dwan, then he doubled through me and in the third clash I was able to eliminate him from the tournament. This moment was also very cool because I managed to eliminate a guy who I have always considered an idol in poker.”
The second phase of the 'Influencer Tournament', a 'Winner-Takes-All' event, saw Foster cash for an incredible US$100,000; but it didn’t stop there. He also won $25,000 for being the top-placed influencer in the tournament, plus a US$2,000 bounty for each fellow influencer he eliminated.
Other big names such as Phil Ivey, Damian Salas, Cristian Stival, DJ Steve Aoki, YouTuber Brad Owen and actress Lynn Gilmartin, among others, were also part of the 'Influencers Tournament'.
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How the Tournament Worked
The Influencer Tournament was divided into two phases. In the first phase 17 influencers hosted freerolls for their followers, with a guaranteed prize pool of US$10,000. In addition to the cash prize, the winner of each tournament received an entry to the second phase, the 'Influencers Main Event'. To make the freerolls even more dynamic, each influencer had a bounty of US$1,000 on their heads which was won by whoever managed to eliminate them.
Phase two, played on June 12th, saw all 17 influencers and the winners of the freerolls from phase one compete for the grand prize of US$100,000.
In the final, the bounty for eliminating each influencer was doubled to US$2,000. Additionally, the influencer to last the longest in the tournament earned US$25,000.
