ICM drama on and off the felt as Rezaei ships $1.9M in $50K WSOP turbo

Posted on: December 6, 2025 23:45 PST

On a day that the World Series of Poker announced the launch of what’s quickly become a controversial new addition to their app, an ICM calculator, WSOP Paradise hosted a tournament where ICM considerations factor heavily into the endgame – a turbo no-limit hold ‘em event.

The $50,000 buy-in event with 20-minute levels was won by Daniel Rezaei, who claimed the second bracelet of WSOP Paradise along with $1,900,000.

The latest in a series of big buy-in events was hugely popular among the high roller crowd, drawing 151 entries, from which the final 23 earned a $114,000 min-cash.

By the time registration closed, following four hours of play, still just under 100 players remained in contention, though the vast majority sat with a sub-20 big blind stack. Chips were fired into the middle rapidly by the short stacks, and the field was down to 46 after just one more hour of play, with the average stack being just 16 big blinds.

After another hour, the field was at 27, just four eliminations away from the money, with the bottom 11 stacks all sitting below ten big blinds.

Alex Foxen

ICM pressure intensifies

At this point of the tournament, Kristen and Alex Foxen were kind enough to offer their thoughts on ICM at this critical point in the tournament, with Kristen sitting on nine bigs, while Alex had just four.

“The ICM input’s going to change a little bit,” said Alex. “With everyone being short as well, it just makes it more likely someone else busts and you don’t. It’s an interesting dynamic for sure.”

Kristen Foxen

As far as including the new calculator in the WSOP+ app, Kristen suggested that it shouldn’t necessarily be receiving the early backlash.

“I can't imagine that there are that many negatives to that," she said. "I think there could be pros to that in a final table situation, but I think that information is pretty easy to calculate yourself, so I don’t think it’s a huge deal.”

Kristen would go on to finish 14th, cashing for $119,000, while Alex was unable to spin up his four bigs and was eliminated in 27th place.

Tyler Moncek

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ICM be damned!

While ICM is certainly a consideration among most tournament players, there are a select few who believe in the adage “ICM is for poor people.” As play then progressed to the final table, a sequence of events led to that phrase coming firmly into play.

Michael 'Texas Mike' Moncek entered the final table with one of the shorter stacks, holding seven big blinds, while Triton Poker founder Paul Phua was one of the healthier players with 12. Leading at the time was Moncek’s brother, Tyler, with just under 18 big blinds.

'Texas Mike' Moncek

Michael would clash with Phua, losing a flip to send his chips to Phua, giving him a slight lead over Tyler, setting up a massive clash.

As reported by WSOP live reporting, at blinds of 200,000/400,000 (400,000) on a board of , with 2,000,000 in the pot, Tyler got in his remaining 6,400,000, covered only by Phua, who called, holding for trips.

Tyler had an airball bluff with and after the board completed , his day was suddenly done in 8th place for $189,000, while Phua now had a massive chip lead.

Paul Phua

Unfortunately for Phua, given the nature of the tournament, even with that lead, he still only had roughly 20 big blinds. A couple of double-ups for his opponents, plus a final lost hand to Rezaei, and Phua was ousted in third place. He had still earned significantly more ($815,000), thanks in large part to that hand vs. Moncek.

From there, Rezaei and Mustafa Kanit faced off heads-up, with Rezaei ultimately victorious to win his first WSOP bracelet, adding to his illustrious poker resume.