Oliver Blakey Wins First-Ever StormX Invitational

The first-ever StormX Invitational is in the books, and it was Oliver Blakey, managing partner at Ascensive Assets, topping the 111-entry field to win $183,150. The tournament played out on Thursday, March 3, at the PokerGO Studio in Las Vegas.

StormX Invitational Payouts

Place	Player	Prize
1	Oliver Blakey	$183,150
2	Branden Hampton	$111,000
3	R.Dawg	$72,150
4	DJ Crypto	$49,950
5	Dave Mei	$38,850
6	David Williams	$33,300
7	Frank Zhang	$27,750
8	Jay Rosenkrantz	$22,200
9	Maria Ho	$16,650

The invite-only StormX Invitational featured poker pros, crypto entrepreneurs, and celebrities all competing for $5,000 each. The top nine finishers reached the final table and made the money.

Among those in attendance were Nick Schulman, Brent Hanks, Jeff Platt, Matt Berkey, Bruce Buffer, Landon Cassill, Charlie Lee, and Amber Arbucci. Simon Yu, CEO and co-founder of StormX, was in the mix as well, in addition to top poker pros Phil Hellmuth and Tom Dwan. All of these players failed to reach the money. Hellmuth busted late in the tournament when his king-ten couldn’t come from behind against Maria Ho’s ace-three.

Ho worked her way to the final table, but she was the short stack and ended up busting in ninth place for $16,650. With nine players left, Ho was all in with ace-ten against David Mei’s ace-king. Ho was dominated going in and ended up drawing dead when the turn hit to bust in ninth place.

Former poker professional Jay Rosenkrantz hit the rail in eighth for $22,200, and then it was Frank Zhang falling in seventh for $27,750. David Williams was the other poker pro to reach the final table, and he went out sixth for $33,300. Like Ho, Williams was all in and dominated on his final hand. He took his king-queen up against Blakey’s ace-queen and received no help on the flop, turn, or river.

Blakey would then go on to bust DJ Crypto in fourth place and R. Dawg in third place to get to heads-up play with Branden Hampton. Blakey started heads-up play with a dominating chip lead and quickly worked to seal the deal to secure the $183,150 bag.

On the final hand, Blakey had seven-six against Hampton’s king-four. Blakey turned a pair of sevens to take the lead in the hand and needed to dodge a king or a diamond on the river. The river missed Hampton to crown Blakey the first-ever StormX Invitational champion. Hampton picked up a payday of $111,000 for his second-place finish.

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