Talal Shakerchi

07-03-2021
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Talal

Meditor Group was created by the former European equities team at Old Mutual, headed by Talal Shakerchi. Soon after inception it launched, marketed and managed a range of global equity funds with an emphasis on Europe. The group built up an international institutional investor base, becoming one of the largest Europe-focussed long-short managers. Talal Shakerchi considers it to be fairly comfortable stakes. This, Shakerchi said, is what gives him an advantage over top-name pros in the largest buy-in tournament on the planet. “In poker it’s always bad if the money means too much to you,” Shakerchi said. Talal Shakerchi is doing a lot right; in poker, in business, and in parts of the world where the lights go out when the sun goes down and playing online poker for real money seems as distant as me winning $1.4m.

Plenty of high stakes action took place in the online poker world over the weekend with tournament specialists getting involved in the KO Series, XL Eclipse, and World Championship Of Online Poker (WCOOP) festivals.

Players calling the United Kingdom and Ireland enjoyed some fruitful sessions as they hauled in their share of some bankroll-boosting scores.

Talal “raidalot” Shakerchi was one such player. Shakerchi was one of 80-entrants in the WCOOP-66-H: $10,300 8-Game High Roller event that saw the top 12 finishers win a share of the $800,000 prize pool. Elior “Crazy Elior” Sion has previous in mixed game events having won the $50,000 Poker Players Championship at the 2017 World Series of Poker. Sion couldn’t get the job done in this online event and fell in 17th place.

Sion’s exit left Shakerchi as the last British player in the field and he did not disappoint. He managed to navigate his way to a third-place finish worth $112,000. No sooner had Shakerchi busted, the final two players struck a deal for the remaining prize pool. Second-place and $173,504 went to Rui “RuiNF” Ferreira with Belgium’s Michael “merla888” Gathy being crowned champion, an accolade that came with $10,495.

Conor “1_conor_b_1” Beresford may call the Netherlands home but he heart remains in the UK. It was Beresford who emerged victoriously from the $2,100 Sunday High Roller after outlasting 97-opponents. The young Brit turned his $2,100 into a cool $46,837 after defeating Dutchman Joris “BillLewinsky” Ruijs heads-up for the lion’s share of the prize pool.

Talal Shakerchi

Fellow Brit Luke “Bit2Easy” Reeves joined Beresford at the final table, but had to make do with the $16,368 consolation prize.

Some of the other big cashes by our players at PokerStars this weekend included:

Talal Shakerchi
  • “geokrinikali” - first-place in WCOOP-65-M: $109 NLHE PKO for $73,229*
  • “despedespi33” - second-place in the $530 Bounty Builder High Roller for $60,362*
  • Paul “pvas2” Vas Nunes – third-place in the $215 Bounty Builder for $20,577*
  • Brandon “Tyrion2205” Sheils - seventh-place in the $530 Bounty Builder High Roller for $15,287*
  • “elltom123” - second-place in WCOOP-66-L: $109 8-Game for $12,185
  • “BenArfaa10” - ninth-place in the $530 Bounty Builder High Roller for $10,189*
  • Kevin “parksy1066” Parkes - eighth-place in the $530 Bounty Builder High Roller for $8,377*
  • “T 54 T 97s” - fifth-place in the $530 Sunday 500 for $5,826
  • “Jahwise” - second-place in the $109 Omania for $3,805
  • Josh “demondoink” Hood - eighth-place in the Bigger $109 for $3,359
  • Chris “Moorman1” Moorman – eighth-place in the $530 Sunday 500 for $2,697
  • Andy “andyh26” Holman – ninth-place in the Bigger $109 for $2,415
  • Benny “RunGodlike” Gaser – fifth-place in the $109 Omania for $1,346

There still several WCOOP events running, including the massive Main Events, as they were two-day tournaments.

Ireland’s Fintan “easywithaces” Hand is currently second from the 800 remaining players in the $5,200 NLHE Main Event where more than $1.5 million awaits the champion. James “jamesg777” Graham and “gambol_time” also find themselves in the top 15 places at the restart.

Only 23 players remain in the $10,300 PLO 6-Max Main Event, including “Naza114” and Richard “raconteur” Gryko, the latter resuming their tournament in fifth-place and well-placed to lock up the $384,947 top prize.

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A high-profile British investment manager has recently won over half a million dollars in a major live poker tournament.

Talal Shakerchi, age 54, finished on the final table of the PokerStars Players Championship (PSPC) $25K buy-in event to scoop the big prize. Shakerchi is the CEO of a successful company, but also, one of the U.K.’s top poker professionals.

Shakerchi founded Meditor Capital Management Limited in 1998, and he has also been chairman of Streamvale Management Company Limited and Intelligent Energy Holdings during his busy business career. Shakerchi has an estimated net worth of around $150 million. For players on the poker circuit, this would often mean easy money, but this is not the case when it comes to Shakerchi, who is himself a serious competitor on the tables.

The PSPC took place in the Bahamas between the 6th – 9th of January. During this time, 1,039 players competed for a total prize pool of over $26 million.

Shakerchi was comfortable during the tournament and was chip leader by the end of the first day. Although he made it to the final table, he went bust a short time later. Then he found himself looking down at pocket aces, the best starting hand in the game. Marc Rivera raised, and Julien Martini re-raised. Finally, Shakerchi made a move for all his 5,250,000 chips.

After a while, Martini called the shove with ace-queen suited. Statistically, it was highly likely that Shakerchi wins this hand, but Martini hit a flush to win the pot and knock him out of the tournament in 8th place. That’s the way it goes, and high flyers know that the best hand doesn’t always win. Shakerchi cashed in for $509,000.

As if this wasn’t enough of a payday, Shakerchi, also went on to cash in another tournament in the same series. He came in 5th place in the Super High Roller event for a further $485,000, making his total payout for the event close to a million.

Roman Colillas went on to win the PSPC tournament, earning himself over $5 million from a free entry.

Talal shakerchi family

However, Spanish player Roman Colillas was the eventual winner of the PSPC. He entered using a Platinum Pass, a special ticket given out by PokerStars that allowed him free entry to the tournament, and took home over $5 million. The event was unusual, with 320 players receiving entry through this system. Among the unique mix of professionals and recreational players at the event, winner Colillas falls more firmly into the recreational side as an occasional player who made it big, unlike Shakerchi.

Shakerchi has made a total of $7.1 million in live poker earnings, earning him the 127th-highest ranking player in the world and the 4th-highest ranking in England. His biggest win came in 2018 in the Super High Roller Bowl event in Las Vegas where he came in 4th in the $300K buy-in game and won an epic $1.18 million.

Talal Shakerchi Poker

Along with his two recent victories in the Bahamas, these three wins all happened within several months of each other, making this year Shakerchi’s best so far for live poker. Shakerchi is also a successful online player operating under the name ‘raidalot’. He came in first in the 2016 Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) $10K Main Event, one of the biggest on the web, for $1.46 million.

Talal Shakerchi

Competition and gaming provide several opportunities for making money and even raising funds like Twitch gamer Eric Taviner. Along with online and live poker, esports tournaments offer prize pools running into the multimillions. Poker is only one avenue and the one that business owner Talal Shakerchi took to continue adding to his increasing wealth. The two half-million-dollar cash prizes that he took home also increase his status as one of the U.K.’s poker greats.

Talal Shakerchi Hendon

*All photos by Carlos Monti @ Rational Intellectual Holdings Ltd. / Used with permission.