Player Update: Sowerss

By Simon Hopper

2nd March 2009

Mike Sowers takes 3rd in the L.A. Poker Classic Main Event for over $650,000....

Congratulations to Mike ‘Sowerss’ Sowers who made the biggest cash of his career at the L.A. Poker Classic Main Event last week.

The MTT legend took 3rd in the $10,000 flagship event at the Commerce Casino for $654,797 to take his live tournament prizes to over $1.2million, despite only ever cashing in 5 major events!

Sowers played his usual hyper-aggressive style throughout the tournament but there was nothing he could do about his elimination hand, losing with 44 to the QQ of Binh Nguyen to bust out 116 hands into final table play.

Factfile:

- 3rd in L.A. Poker Classic for over $650,000

- Regular high stakes MTT player

- Also final tabled $10,000 PLH at the 2008 WSOP

Pocket Fives Live described the crucial hands at the final table, not least this one with Sowers predictably in the thick of the action:

“On the 43rd hand of final table play, Sowers dropped a sizable pot to Cimpan. With blinds of 40,000-80,000 and a 10,000 chip ante, Sowers opened for 200,000 and Cimpan called from the small blind to see the flop of K-3-2 with two spades. Sowers made a continuation bet of 325,000 and Cimpan called. The turn came the queen of hearts and the action went check-check. The river was the king of clubs and Sowers bet 520,000. Cimpan called with pocket sevens, trumping Sowers' 8-9 of clubs. The 2.2 million chip pot helped catapult the eventual winner into the lead.”

Playing as ‘Sowerss’ on PokerStars & ‘SowersUNCC’ on Full Tilt, the North Carolina native has been crushing the high stakes online tournaments since 2007 but it seems that he has taken his offline game to another level as well over the past 12 months. In January 2008 he took down the Borgata Open $5,000 NLH Event for $399,000 (defeating Tom Dwan in heads-up play) before final tabling Event #1 of the 2008 WSOP ($10,000 PLH), finishing 8th for $99,264. His elimination hand versus Mike Sexton is a classic example of his playing style:

Sowers has continued to make significant scores online in 2009, taking down the PokerStars $100 Re-Buys for $31,628 in January before placing runner-up in FTOPS 2nd Chance Event #12 ($1,000 NLH) for a massive $221,680 just days before the L.A. Main Event got underway! This took his prizes on FT to over $600,000, to go with more than $700,000 already banked on PokerStars. Clearly he has a lot to be celebrating right now – congratulations, Sowerss, and we look forward to seeing you light up a few more televised final tables at the 2009 WSOP.