Portugal’s Manuel “Sheparentao” Ruivo, living in the Netherlands, is the 2018 partypoker MILLIONS Online champion, an accolade that came with a $2,329,943 first-place prize following a heads-up deal with Pim “ForMatherRussia” de Goede.
Twenty-nine players returned to the partypoker tables on 5 December, each guaranteed $65,505 for their efforts.
Once the eight-handed final table was set, De Goede held a massive 1,588,165,265 chips with COL_MOutarde being his nearest rival, in terms of chips, with a 626,714,202 stack.
This put de Goede in a prime spot to bully his opponents, and bully he did, moving all in regularly and putting his foes to the test for their entire stacks.
De Goede continued his one-man wrecking spree by sending Marques to the rail, followed by Slovenia’s “Scarmak3r” who headed to the exit at third for $1,364,687 – a stunning ROI on his $5.50 satellite investment that earned him his seat.
His departure left Ruivo and de Goede heads up with evenly balanced stacks, presenting an oportunity for a chop. The two quickly reached agreement, and play was concluded a hand later with De Goede taking home a second placing $2,309,994 and crowning Ruivo the 2018 MILLIONS Online champion with a prize of $2,329,943.
After the fourth starting flight on Dec. 4, there was a total of 4,367 entries – 2,190 unique; the rest from re-entries for this competition. At a $5,300 buy-in, the prize pool added up to a record-breaking $21,835,000.
PokerStars set the previous record in 2011, when the 10th anniversary Sunday Million set a $10 million guaranteed prize. 62,000 players signed up and created a $12.4 million prize pool.