The decision by the Israeli owners of private online poker company PokerStars to continue to offer US players hospitality appears to be reaping some serious rewards, certainly in the short term. This weekend’s major online poker tournaments saw what is now probably the world’s largest poker website shatter its own week-old record prize pool for a weekly-held event on its PokerStars Sunday Million.
6 413 players signed on for this week’s Sunday Million at Poker Stars, generating a $1 282 600 prize pool. 900 places paid, the top nine received five-figure prizes, and the first-place prize was headed for $183 411.80, though a three-way chop and a major post-deal comeback jumbled the payouts for the top three players.
Chip leader at the start of the final was ‘win532’ who had a significant lead of over $15.6 million in chips when the final table assembled. The other eight survivors were holding chips in the range $4.3 million and $8.2 million, allowing plenty of flexibility for high action play, and that’s the way the game went before ending in a deal between the final three players left standing which gave paydays like this:
1st ($103 318): osten87
2nd ($124,397): Halkeye
3rd ($104 735): lteopepe88
The other six players at the final table received rewards ranging up from $11 030 to $45 917.
FullTilt’s $250 000 Guarantee tourney attracted 1 726 players for a total prize pool well above guarantee of $345 200, with 153 players “in the money” Winner “Jennez” dominated the final table throughout to take home $74 218, whilst his heads up final opponent “Cardno” pocketed $48 328.
Ultimate Bet’s $200 000 Guarantee didn’t quite make its prize pool target, but had another strong turnout and chip-leader “gobboboy” survived an ebb-and-flow final table to take down the win. 863 players made up the starting field in which the top 90 cashed, and when the final table formed, “gobboboy” had the inside track with a chip lead of $473 000.
The last three players at the table were gobboboy, Phwap and MIRACLEGRO, each with deep stacks, and a lengthy period of three-way play took place before Miracle exited after some astute play by Phwap, leaving the heads up tussle between gobboboy and Phwap, each with pretty much the same chip stack. Phwap started strong by winning the first big hand, putting gobboboy on the ropes, but gobboboy made a successful playback, doubling through twice and finally claiming the win to pick up a healthy $45 000 cheque, whilst Phwap collected a well-earned $27 000.