No, its not the Sunday Million wrap up’s early edition as that will be coming your way a little later on tonight. For the early birds, the Sunday Warm-up provides the big MTT experience for most players without having to explain to your boss why there’s a keyboard imprint on the side of your face when that double espresso doesn’t quite kick in.
3,617 players checked-in for the Sunday Warm-Up tonight and PokerStars provided the extra bread as the guaranteed prize pool of $750,000 would be up for grabs as bot432931 (with an 8th place finish in the Warm-Up last December, click here for the report) took the chip lead into the last break with 17 players left.
mement_mori and pokerMJ were also in the mix with 16 players left and had a little history as the two battled it out on the August Turbo Takedown final table taking 2nd and 4th respectively. Check out their final table battle here. mement_mori would check out in 14th place in a big five million chip pot for ael1979 who held Ad-Kd to mement_mori’s Ac-Qc and the board running out to no avail for mement_mori. pokerMJ would also run into the buzzsaw known is ael1979 (who has won the Warm-up twice last year for a total of $180,000 in winnings) as he picked up Aces twice within three hands to knock out ScaryGrant and pokerMJ to amass a huge 12 million chip stack.
Also checking in once again looking for a big cash was December 2nd Sunday Million runner-up (read here for the final table wrap up) WestMenlo92 who snagged $97,710.92 but would need to take the first prize of $101,250 tonight to eclipse that cash.
Here’s the how the final table formed up:
Seat 1: IBLUFFULOL (2790106 in chips)
Seat 2: mozitas (4409391 in chips)
Seat 3: ael1979 (14496801 in chips)
Seat 4: wdrzich (1760704 in chips)
Seat 5: bot432931 (3050676 in chips)
Seat 6: Puniponken (2988578 in chips)
Seat 7: wildman22222 (1479562 in chips)
Seat 8: Pokky Star (2574189 in chips)
Seat 9: Pappe_Ruk (2619993 in chips)
As stated above ael1979 received the cards coming into the final table and started off with a sizable chip lead over the table, nearly four times as many as second place mozitas.
Bluffing works every time in NLHE except the last time, as IBLUFFULOL open-shoved his 1,925,106 chips into the middle preflop after it was folded around to his small blind. But, mozitas was sitting on nearly five million chips in the big blind and As-Qd was plenty to call the shove creating a 4,230,212 chip pot. IBLUFFULOL wasn’t laughing being dominated while holding Ad-4h as the board ran out 2d-3c-2s-Jc-9s as IBLUFFULOL earned $6,750.00 in ninth place.
bot432931’s finish in eighth place could only be described in one word: “dirty”
Happily calling the small blind open-shove of wdrzich (who covered by 334,028) while holding pocket rockets (Ad-As) and being well ahead of wdrzich who’s held the blackjack hand of 3c-8s. wdrzich wasn’t looking for face cards but rather some sort of two pair or trips. The flop came Jh-8h-7s, hitting the first leg of the mountain climb for wdrzich, the Jc on the turn though negated the three treys as outs, but the river 8d sent wdrizch over the peak of the mountain with eights full of jacks and sent bot432931’s cracked aces home in eighth place for $9,750.00.
Just five hands later Puniponken opened a pot UTG+2 for 490,000 with the blinds at 100,000/200,000 ante 20,000 folding around to mozitas in the small blind who re-popped it to 1.4 million. Puniponken decided to take a stand by four-betting all-in which mozitas called leaving 3,874,373 behind creating a 6.4 million chip pot.
mozitas: As-Qh
Puniponken: Ac-Kd
Flop of 5d-7h-9s provided nothing to note, but the Qs on the turn flipped the domination in the direction of mozitas. A 9d on the river and Puni’s big slick wasn’t so big any longer as mozitas’ pair of queens sent Puniponken home in seventh place with a rather large $15,750.00 score.
Shortly after the break PokkyStar and ael1979 got tangled in an all-in preflop 10 million chip pot which was shipped to PokkyStar as his pocket kings (Ks-Kc) held up over ael1979’s Ac-Qs and three players now held 10 million in chips (Pokky Star, mozitas, ael1979).
The very next hand however would be the last for the short stacked Pappe_Ruk. Open shoving UTG for 658,993 with the blinds going up to 125,000,250,000 ante 25,000 with 4s-5s for Pappe_Ruk was looking great for the blind steal. But, wildman22222 woke up with a suited connector himself in the big blind as he called the extra 400K. The board gave Pappe_Ruk a little light on turn of: 7d-Th-Qh-3s giving him a few outs despite the flopped straight-flush draw of wildman22222. But, the Kh on the river completed wildman22222’s flush and Team Supa would bow out in sixth place for $23,250.00
Despite knocking out Pappe_Ruk, wildman22222 was still short stacked compared to the remainder of the table and several hands later found himself all-in preflop after open-pushing for 1.4 million from the button with blinds still at 125,000/250,000 ante 25,000. mozitas was sitting in the big blind with over nine million in chips and gambled a little while calling with Th-8h. wildman22222 did have a slight lead in the race with Ac-3s that expanded with the Ad-6d-5c flop. The waters muddied quickly on the turn of 7d giving mozitas an open-ended straight draw which filled on the river 4h giving mozitas the higher straight. Fifth place and $30,750.000 for the Farmington Hills native wildman22222 left us with four.
Chop talks consisted of two lines of texts and crickets as the remaining players had a bit of play compared to the blinds and the remaining four got back to work.
If you’re interested in the recently completed APPT Auckland tournament, be sure to check out the posts here, or watch the video below of Daniel Craker’s victory:
Watch APPT Auckland 08: The Winner – Daniel Craker on PokerStars.tv
wdrzich pulled out of a slight hole as he took his “short” stack of 5.7 million and pocket eights 8s-8d to war against mozitas who called from the small blind leaving 3.5 million behind with Ah-Qd. The pocket pair held up shipping the 11.7 million chip pot to wdrzich who would take down the blinds in the very next hand, and continued the rush the very next hand against the now short-stacked mozitas. With blinds still at 150,000/300,000 ante 30,000 mozitas tried to get his sailboats(4s-4h) to port from UTG while open-shoving for 3.4 million but wdrzich’s pocket ladies (Qh-Qs) sprung out of the small blind for the snap call and the Td-7h-Jc-3c-6s board sent mozitas home in fourth place with $38,625.00 from big stack to out in three hands.
wdrzich meanwhile zoomed to the top of the leaderboard with the 7.3 million chip pot with his 15.8 million chips and the chat box finally opened up the dialogue for a chip-chop based on the below chip stacks:
ael1979: 8,172,416
wdrzich: 14,688,663
Pokky Star: 13,308,921
After some careful negotiations as wdrzich and Pokky Star gave up a little bit to ael1979 we have a deal leaving $10K for our champ!
ael1979: $65,005
wrdzich: $74,649
Pokky Star: $71,595
After the chop, the players contracted an allergy to board cards as they saw a whopping five flops in over thirty five hands as the chips floated towards whoever would shove over the top of the opening raiser but resulting in no real changes of the chip counts as the blinds were escalating to 300,000/600,000 ante 60,000.
But, just six minutes prior to the jump in the blinds and the break, Pokky Star and ael1979 got their chips into the middle preflop as ael1979 was all-in while PokkyStar kept 9.3 million behind:
Pokky Star: Js-Jd
ael1979: 9h-9d
The dominating pocket jacks of Pokky Star would hold up on the board of Qd-2s-Qs-3c-2h as ael1979’s shot at a Sunday Warm-up hat trick would fall short of the back of the net but, via the chop, he received $65,005 for third place.
Starting off with a nearly three to one chip lead, Pokky Star would not relinquish his stack. wdrzich managed a double-up after 28 hands holding Qc-Th and getting a call from Pokky Star with Jh-5h, but due to Pokky Star’s pre-flop aggression, the double-up only returned the chip stacks to the amounts they started with at the beginning of heads-up play.
Five hands later with 26 million for Pokky Star and nearly nine million for wdrzich tonight’s winner was named. The blinds sitting at 300,000/600,000 ante 60,000 and wdrzich shoved his nine million from the button with 7s-5s and Pokky Star made the call with Ad-Jd
The flopped pair of aces (9h-Ah-4d) left wdrzich drawing extremely thin, the Qh on the turn had wdrzich falling through the ice and drawing dead as the 8c was dropped on the river for legal purposes. wdrzich snagged $74,649 for second place from the three-way chop as Pokky Star got the extra $10K and $81,595 for being is this week’s Sunday Warm-up Champ!
10-12-08 Sunday Warm-up Results
(based on three-way chop)
1. Pokky Star $81,595.00
2. wdrzich $74,649.00
3. ael1979 $65,005.00
4. mozitas $38,625.00
5. wildman22222 $30,750
6. Pappe_Ruk $23,250.00
7. Puniponken $15,750.00
8. bot432931 $9,750.00
9. IBLUFFULOL $6,750.00
