Sean Bloom Wins 2025 The Hendon Mob Championship Cape Town Million After Three-Way Deal
The third edition of the The Hendon Mob Championship Cape Town Million has crowned a winner and it was a South African affair on the final table with one exception. With previous field sizes of 210 and 299 entries, the third instalment of the ZAR 8,000 (USD 450) buy-in attracted a total of 354 entries across four starting days and 46 players earned a slice of the ZAR 2,378,880 (USD 137,975) prize pool at the GrandWest Casino by Sun International. The initial guarantee of ZAR 1.25 million was nearly doubled in the event held in cooperation with the SunBet Poker Tour.
After the elimination of French player Kevin Boyer, a trio of local players agreed to a deal and the baby run-good of Sean Bloom saw him lift the trophy as the chip leader after shaking hands with Alvin Pillay and Marko Nortje. In the inaugural edition back in 2023, Bloom finished in fourth place for ZAR 115,000 and was all smiles for the winner shots.
"It is always fantastic to win a poker tournament. I came fourth in this event two years ago so it is kind of nice to go a couple steps further than that. I have been fortunate enough to win a few Main Events and other tournaments along the way, but this is a fantastic event. The prize pool flew past the guarantee and swelled up pretty nicely, it is a handsome payday and nothing to complain about. It is a great event”, Bloom concluded in the victory interview with The Hendon Mob's very own Roland Boothby.
The travel plans may require some approval by his partner with a new born at home, but he certainly has penciled into his schedule more trips abroad for live poker action outside of South Africa. He takes home a package for The Hendon Mob Championship for 2026 on top of his cash winnings to further sweeten the victory.
For most of the final day, Nortje dominated the action with the largest chip stack and relentless aggression. However, that fired back on the final table when Bloom picked him off twice to become the overwhelming leader in three-handed play.
“I have played lots of pots with Marko over the years and I know what he is capable of. I try and inflate the pots against him when my hands are feeling quite nutted because I know he can kind of blast off with what he construes as a strong hand at the time. So I kind of tried to inflate the ace-ten as much as possible and make it more bluffy than it obviously was," the eventual champion summarised his double-up into the lead against Nortje.
Soon after, both clashed again when Nortje fired three barrels with a pair of fours and couldn't force out Bloom on a draw-heavy board.
"And the king-jack I just felt like I had the best hand and I thought about raising the turn, but then I thought obviously if he's got it I am drawing pretty thin. But when he went kind of hard on the river but didn't go all-in, it didn't make a fortune of sense to me and I thought I had the best hand,” the accomplished local poker pro explained.
Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Country | Prize (ZAR) | Prize (USD) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sean Bloom | South Africa | 350,000 | $20,300* |
| 2 | Alvin Pillay | South Africa | 305,000 | $17,690* |
| 3 | Marko Nortje | South Africa | 285,000 | $16,530* |
| 4 | Kevin Boyer | France | 167,000 | $9,686 |
| 5 | Prenesh Naidoo | South Africa | 123,000 | $7,134 |
| 6 | Dylan Barnard | South Africa | 94,000 | $5,452 |
| 7 | Jason De Villiers | South Africa | 78,000 | $4,524 |
| 8 | Kinesh Pather | South Africa | 62,000 | $3,596 |
| 9 | Sachin Naidoo | South Africa | 48,000 | $2,784 |
*Denotes three-way deal
Nortje had his fair share of fortune and well-timed aggression throughout the entire day, sending several players to the rail by applying maximum pressure. Among them was also the very experienced Kinesh Pather on the final table when his pocket kings were cracked by Nortje's ace-eight suited. Jason De Villiers made it all the way to seventh place despite being absent from the tables for more than four hours when he was called to a business meeting during the first break of the day.
It was an action-packed day not only because of Nortje's hyper-aggressive style but the 46 Day 1 survivors were culled down to nearly half by the time the first break started. Jedd Kossew only lasted three hands until his ace-queen ran into ace-king. Imran Bhojani bowed out against Cliton Taliwanth on the feature table and Jaryd Jardien followed suit in a three-way all-in on the outer tables against Pather.
Taliwanth's run ended on the final three tables when he lost a flip with ace-king against the pocket tens of Yoni Lipshitz. The latter was then crushed by the wrecking ball Nortje who jammed queen-jack suited into his pocket jacks and spiked a queen on the turn. Tanith Rothman was also among the several talented local players to run deep and carefully navigated a short stack to an 18th place.
One of the few players from abroad to reach the final two tables was Scotsman Dean Hutchison, who reached the final table of the World Series of Poker Main Event in Las Vegas two years ago in 2023. Hutchison came to South Africa upon recommendation from his buddy James Rann and ultimately bowed out in 13th place after a roller-coaster ride. Pillay dealt the final blow with tens versus eights, having picked up the same pocket pair four times on the outer tables.
The final table was a rather short-lived and very intense affair, heavily influenced by the sheer aggression of chip leader Nortje. However, the 25 year old could not make it all the way to victory when Bloom had his number twice and settled for a three-handed deal.
The Hendon Mob Championship has one further stop scheduled in 2025, which is imminent in a few days from now at the Genting Casino Stratford in London, United Kingdom. The PokerNews live reporting team will remain in Cape Town to provide live updates from the upcoming Joe-Boy Rahme MonsterStaK Main Event from November 27 to 30, 2025 in honour of the popular local pro who recently passed away.