“Second place is the first loser,” is a quote uttered by several famous morons throughout history, who probably finished second place or worse many times in their lives. But German poker player Max Heinzelmann is finding out that second place isn’t really that bad after two huge runner-up finishes in major European Poker Tour events.
Heinzelmann’s latest big runner-up finish came at EPT San Remo earlier today, when he was beaten by the UK’s Rupert Elder in heads-up play. Of course, you can’t really call this much of a loss since he managed to scoop €600,000 ($892,000) in the process.
Incredibly, it was only three weeks ago that Heinzelmann was in the hunt for the EPT Berlin title. He managed to work his way into a heads-up battle with Canadian Benjamin Wilinofsky, before losing a short time into the match and collecting a second place finish. He also added €500,000 ($711,602) to his bankroll.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about all of this is that Heinzelmann was basically a nobody in the poker world just a month ago. He had three tournament cashes and a little over $33,000 in earnings during his two-year live poker career. But with over $1.6 million and two huge EPT finishes in the last three weeks alone, you could make a case that Heinzelmann is a budding star.
If Heinzelmann gets one more huge cash in 2011, he might even get a “pro card” from that cheesy poker league Annie Duke is running.
