Another great weekend across the board on all the major sites with players steadily returning from the WSOP and numbers in the biggest weekend majors increasing just as steadily with their return.
As usual action kicked off on Saturday with the first tournament in line being the Saturday Super-Knockout on PokerStars. 779 players put up $320, half of which went into the prize pool and half of which went to bounties. Eventually the last 3 players struck a deal, splitting the remaining prize pool. One of those players was high stakes tournament pro Shankar Pillai who has some very impressive online results, including a 2nd place finish in the Sunday Second Chance and a 3rd place finish in the Super Tuesday.
This time, however, he was in last place in chips coming into 3-handed play and got the worst end of the deal as well as being officially eliminated in 3rd place, so Shankar is still yet to take down a Sunday major event.
Saturday Super-Knockout
$320 buy-in
779 runners
239,932 prize pool
1. el kudos $17,699.23*
2. blakjak19 $16,150.00*
3. Shankar825 $15,757.04* (Shankar Pillai, High stakes tournament pro with $1,3m in cashes)
4. Poleshchikov $8,937.46
5. #1StefanLiv $6,238.23 (High stakes tournament pro with $600K in cashes)
6. gugaway $5,038.57
7. Hernan Bog $3,838.91
8. Kesjan $2,639.25
9. @cey@lone $1,559.55
The rest of the big Saturday action was focused on Full Tilt Poker and it all began with the biggest buy-in weekly tournament available there – The $1K Saturday.
A lot of well-known names have made the final table and had their sight set on the $25K first place prize, however, this would be the weekend of two of them. Runner up was Russian pro “MAMOHT_T” who at the end of 2012 final table the FTOPS XXI Main Event and walked away with $65,000. And the winner was polish pro “Pyszalek” who just in the last year recorded multiple big scores across PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker. When play got to heads up, players agreed to a deal with “MAMOHT_T” receiving $19,962.21 and “Pyszalek” earning $21,752.79 for his efforts.
$1K Saturday
$1,050 buy-in
81 runners
81,000 prize pool
1. Pyszalek $21,752.79* (High stakes tournament pro with $2.5m in cashes)
2. MAMOHT_T $19,962.21* (High stakes tournament pro with $2.7m in cashes)
3. Cswidler $11,340.00 (Carter Swidler, High stakes tournament pro with $2.8m in cashes)
4. S_Dot111 $8,910.00 (Shyam Srinivasan, High stakes tournament pro with $6.4m in cashes)
5. Marlou-37 $6,480.00
6. gosuoposum1 $4,860.00 (High stakes tournament pro with $2.2m in cashes)
7. r4ndomr4gs $3,240.00 (High stakes tournament pro with $2.3m in cashes)
8. jhlifs $2,430.00
9. MeZZiaS $2,025.00
As it was mentioned earlier, this was “MAMOHT_T”’s weekend, or at least his Saturday as he final tabled the very next major tournament in line – The Saturday Six-Max. Not only did he final table this tournament, but he also took 2nd place for another $7,326.00, totaling his Saturday scores at over $25,000! Both times “MAMOHT_T” lost the heads up battle to well -known pro’s and this time it was Matt Kay, one of the most accomplished online tournament players in history. Matt has a final table appearance in nearly all the big online tournament series, including the SCOOP, WCOOP, ECOOP and many more. With this win Matt adds another $11,088.00 to his multi – million dollar resume.
Saturday Six-Max
$320 buy-in
132 runners
39,600 prize pool
1. NoBadBeatsPlz $11,088.00 (Matt Kay, High stakes tournament pro with $5.7m in cashes)
2. MAMOHT_T $7,326.00 (High stakes tournament pro with $2.7m in cashes)
3. THE_GOLDMINE $5,346.00
4. xPokerGenius $3,960.00
5. TyRusT $2,772.00 (High stakes tournament pro with $700K in cashes)
6. Anri4life $1,782.00
As Sunday rolled around, the biggest online action once again shifted to PokerStars with the one and only Sunday Warm-Up and Sunday Million ready to kickoff.
The Sunday Warm-Up saw 2794 runners, boosting the guaranteed prize pool to $558,000 with $88,011.87 going to the winner. A lot of accomplished made this final table and three of them made it to three handed play. Despite that, players skipped out on a deal and decided to play it out which led to Sweden’s “C. Darwin2” getting eliminated in 3rd place with a $46,939.20 score, leaving Canada’s “88Xin88” and “j_kork” from Greece to battle it out.
“88Xin88” had far more experience with a 4th place finish in the MiniFTOPS Main Event, a 5th place finish in the Sunday Second Chance and a win in the very first TCOOP Event of 2012. “j_kork” has had a few good scores with final tables in The Big $162 and The Bigger $22, both of which ended in third place finishes for him, adding ~$15,000 to his bankroll each. Despite that, “j_kork” managed to overcome whatever disadvantage he had and take down the Warm-Up for is biggest online score up to date!
Sunday Warm Up
$215 buy-in
2794 runners
558,800 prize pool
1. j_kork $88,011.87
2. 88Xin88 $65,659.00 (High stakes tournament pro with $700K in cashes)
3. C. Darwin2 $46,939.20 (High stakes tournament pro with $1.3m in cashes)
4. JEKAAA7 $32,131.00
5. o23oSyD $24,307.80
6. camikater $18,719.80
7. btvedt $13,131.80
8. PizzicatoXev $7,554.97 (David Montague, High stakes tournament pro with $1m in cashes)
9. Jollymakky $4,749.80
With the last breaths of the 100 billionth hand celebration, the $1M Ultimate Freeroll kicked off between the Sunday Warm-Up and the Sunday Million. With more than 50,000 players registered this was bound to be a very fast and interesting tournament. The last 4 players remaining split the prizepool according to their chips stacks with Estonian “konn999” getting the biggest $40,000 chunk. Despite that, it was Ukrainian “7stol21” who received $25,000 in the deal but came back to win the tournament. “7stol21” has made his first deposit just a few days earlier and was playing his 6th tournament on PokerStars!
$1M Ultimate Freeroll
Freeroll
50163 runners
1,000,000 prize pool
1. 7stol21 $25,000.00*
2. konn999 $40,000.00*
3. glhftywp $25,000.00*
4. farrokh674 $20,000.00*
5. Econometrist $8,000.00
6. RRizdevigais $6,500.00
7. Newb Guy $5,250.00
8. Jukka862 $4,000.00
9. sminkstylo $3,000.00
With the $1M Ultimate Freeroll coming to an end the Sunday Million was already in full swing. Just like in the Sunday Warm-Up, a trio of pro’s dominated the final table and played it out to the very end with no deals being made.
“JohnnyDepp” who has some impressive scores on his resume finished 4th for $70,235.00, which is by far his biggest score. Heads up was between ”EDWARDHOPPER” from Denmark and “Flush098765” from Germany, both of whom are no strangers to high stakes tournaments. “EDWARDHOPPER” has two 2nd place finishes in the Super Tuesday, while “Flush098765” finished 2nd in the Sunday Warm-Up just three months ago! Eventually it was “Flush098765” who came out on top of this battle, taking home his biggest online cash of $194,231.70.
Sunday Million, $1M Guaranteed
$215 buy-in
6385 runners
1,277,000 prize pool
1. Flush098765 $194,231.70 (High stakes tournament pro with $2m in cashes)
2. EDWARDHOPPER $143,662.50
3. OnkelAqua $102,160.00
4. JohnnyDepp $70,235.00 (High stakes tournament pro with $400K in cashes)
5. WeiTei $53,634.00
6. Icrywhenipee $40,864.00
7. Merceko $28,094.00
8. Silberrück15 $15,324.00
9. Babbelz $9,896.75
Last in the major’s line up was Full Tilt Poker’s $250K Guaranteed where 1166 players took to the felt, chasing the $50,000 first place prize. Amazingly, this is where “Pyszalek”, who won the $1K Saturday just a day ago really made his mark on the weekend as he went all the way to heads up, finishing in second place and scoring another $33,300.00! With that score his weekend total amounted to more than $50,000! The man who defeated him in heads up was “NutsErryTime” from Costa Rica. An accomplished players as well, his largest online tournament score was in 2009, when he won the PokerStars Wednesday Quarter Million for $46,900
$250K Guaranteed
$215 buy-in
1166 runners
250.000 prize pool
1. NutsErryTime $50,000.00 (High stakes tournament pro with $2.3m in cashes)
2. Pyszalek $33,300.00 (High stakes tournament pro with $2.5m in cashes)
3. jab0c0 $23,750.00
4. Guld_Bullen $17,750.00
5. PIPE17 $13,250.00
6. Naza114 $9,750.00 (Joao Vieira, High stakes tournament pro with $3.7m in cashes)
7. MonteKristo88 $7,250.00
8. Dudator $5,250.00
9. mrwhatFISH $3,750.00
For those currently living in the US the great action of PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker is of course unavailable at the moment, but don’t sweat it, because you can register right now at Bovada Poker and take part in great tournaments every day, including the $100,000 Guarantee on Sunday! This week the $100,000 attracted 808 players, creating an impressive $121,000 prize pool! So for just $162 you can play for prizes that rival PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker majors, so start winning with Bovada today!