Last week’s massive 59,128 player Sunday Million crowd spilled over to the $750,000 guarantee Sunday Warm-up as this tournament also broke a record with over six thousand players. This week the crowd was not as big but marks the fourth time in five weeks that the Sunday Warm-up’s prize pool would eclipse one million dollars. 5,213 players handed over their $215 buy-in for a shot at $163,096.51 sitting at the final table for tonight’s champion. That money would go a long way in two months when the 2011 Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) kicks off at 1:00pm Eastern time on May 8th with a three tiered buy-in NLHE 6-max tournament.
To get to the final table we had to say goodbye to 5,204 players including several Team PokerStars members like Victor Ramdin who recently took down the $5,000 buy-in main event at The Bicycle Casino, defeating fellow Team Pro Joe Hachem heads-up for the $500,000 first prize. Ramdin would finish a little further off tonight in 3,143rd place. Jonathan Duhamel had a great run during the recent NBC National Heads-up Poker Championship losing in the semi-finals to fellow Team Pro and fellow WSOP Main Event champ Chris Moneymaker (man these teammates seem to like knocking each other out of tourneys). Tonight, Jonathan had another good run and sniffed the money but fell just short in 800th place as 765 players tonight went home with at least $312.78 in their pockets. Team PokerStars SportStars Fatima Moreira de Melo //www.pokerstars.com/team-pokerstars/fatima-moreira-de-melo/ managed what several Team Pros could not and slid into the cash tonight ending her run in 601st place ($344.05). de Melo was joined at the cashier’s window by WCOOP champ and member of Team Online Alexis “J0hnny_Dr@m@” Zervos 460th place ($375.33), and Jorge Arias in 388th place ($417.04).
While it took nine hours to reach the final table it would only take two minutes to go from twelve players to nine. stofzuiger73 took care of ThaKammi’s night in 12th place ($6,203.47). The next hand saw Polse68’s pocket queens eliminate Garrett “gbecks” Beckman in 11th place ($6,203.47). As Polse68 was gathering up Beckman’s chips, doubledave22 on the opposite table was all-in preflop. With the blinds at 80K/160K ante 16K doubledave22 looked down at 2♦ A♦ in the big blind facing a min-raise from Olis2 in the small blind. doubledave22 would shove his stack of 1.76 million and Olis2 made the call holding a slightly better ace A♣ 5♥ . 41 percent of the time this ends in a tie, but the 59 percent came in and Olis2’s favored kicker found four other hearts on the 6♣ K♥ 4♥ A♥ Q♥ board to take down the 3.94 million chip pot eliminating doubledave22 in tenth place ($6,203.47) setting up our final table below.
Seat 1: Olis2 (9548207 in chips)
Seat 2: Polse68 (8448187 in chips)
Seat 3: stofzuiger73 (6094098 in chips)
Seat 4: Biggest_Fi5h (7164463 in chips)
Seat 5: crow1975 (3691583 in chips)
Seat 6: radik-dn (5765016 in chips)
Seat 7: PlayaPlz (3982712 in chips)
Seat 8: AVAN77 (5026231 in chips)
Seat 9: hitthehole (2409503 in chips)
Hole in seat nine
Just eight hands into our final table hitthehole tried squeezing through the line for some sorely needed blinds as he open shoved from cutoff for 1.9 million holding Qâ™ K♥ . Olis2 sitting on the button looking like a menacing Mike Singletary quickly plugged the hole by making the call with pocket aces Aâ™ A♣ . This one was over by the turn 2â™ 3♦ J♣ 8♣ 6♦ as hitthehole could not get past the linebacker for the first down but collected $8,340.80 in ninth place. Unlike last year’s Event #20-High SCOOP tourney when hitthehole took the chip lead into day 2 and finished 12th for $20,672, he got to the final table tonight.
Fish becomes shore lunch
While it took eight hands to see the first elimination it would be over a half hour later until the second occurred. With the blinds at 150K/300K ante 30K, Biggest_Fi5h would shove 2.4 million from the cutoff as it folded to PlayaPlz in the big blinds wielding a pair of kings K♣ K♦ . PlayaPlz made the easy call as Biggest_Fi5h needed a little help holding Q♠A♥ . A scary, coordinated 7♠J♣ 8♣ 9♥ 8♥ board was laid out but Biggest_Fi5h did not improve and was filleted, battered, fried, and served with a cold beer in eighth place ($13,032.50).
Not a pleasing result
Three hands after losing a coin flip against crow1975 for an 8.3 million chip pot, PlayaPlz would find all of his chips in the middle preflop again. This time he would take dominate hand into the flop against Olis2, watch the results below:
No wait for the suck out as Olis2’s A♣ 5â™ found two pair on the flop Aâ™ 5♣ Qâ™ to overtake PlayaPlz’s Jâ™ A♥ . The 3♣ and 6♦ on the turn and river did not improve PlayaPlz’s hand as the bad beat story was worth $23,458.50 in seventh place.
Karma strikes?
Olis2 took care of PlayaPlz’s chips but found those chips hard to hold to. As Olis2, who knocked out PlayaPlz, found himself all-in preflop for 2.1 million with the blinds at 250K/500K ante 50K holding 8♣ 9♥ . Polse68 in the small blind made the call with pocket fours 4â™ 4♥ to start up the race for 4.9 million chips. A flopped gutter-ball straight draw was the only excitement on the Q♦ 2♥ 10♦ Q[s] 5♥ board as Olis2 took a seat in sixth place ($33,884.50).
Sky high blinds and still five players left
Make that four. With the blinds still at 250K/500K ante 50K, stofzuiger73 looked down at big slick A♠K♦ in the big blind facing a 6.1 million chip shove from Polse68 in the small blind. stofzuiger73 would make the call as Polse68 showed pocket tens 10♥ 10♠, starting up the race for an eight figure pot. 12.8 million in the middle and the ace did not waste any time finding the board on the door card A♣ 6♣ 7♠K♣ 9♣ vaulting big slick past the tens and knocking out Polse68 in fifth place ($44,310.50).
Nothing to crow about
Five hands later as the blinds remained the same, crow1975 faced a shove in the big blind from AVAN77. Holding just 3.6 million chips and J♦ K♥ , crow1975 would let the chips fly as AVAN77 covered and flipped up a slightly better kicker J♥ Aâ™ . Neither player hit the all-low A♣ 6♣ 7â™ K♣ 9♣ board as AVAN77’s ace kicker played to take down the 8.7 million chip pot as crow1975 would have to settle on eating $58,906.90 in fourth place.
Text book negotiations
This should have been filmed as Team PokerStars Online member Grayson “spacegravy” Physioc assisted our remaining three with chip chop numbers. There was no bartering, no chest-puffing, just a simple “I agree” in the chat box and the three players secured six figure scores leaving $10,000 for tonight’s champion:
stofzuiger: $141,696.94
AVAN77: $111,599.04
radik-dn: $107,277.43
No time to waste
While it took almost ten and a half hours to eliminate the five thousand player field our last two eliminations would take just eleven minutes. Watch below as radik-dn and stofzuiger73 get their chips in the middle preflop to combine for a 20.4 million chip pot:
A♣ 5♣ for radik-dn holding a slight lead over AVAN77’s K♦ J♣ . The ace was holding nicely through the turn 3â™ 7â™ 10♣ 9♣ AVAN77 would be down to just 3.3 million if he lost. But the 8♦ on the river had other ideas and notched the unlikely straight for AVAN77 as radik-dn took that chopped six figure score $107,277.43home in third place.
Two minute warning
stofzuiger73 would carry a slight lead of 28.3 million to AVAN77’s 23.8 million into heads-up play. With the blinds still at 250K/500K ante 50K both players had over 40 big blinds to play with but chose to settle things in under two minutes. After stofzuiger73 open up a slightly bigger lead after taking down the blinds five out of eight times, both would settle things preflop on the ninth hand. AVAN77 and stofzuiger73 both found an ace in their hand but stofzuiger73’s queen kicker A♦ Q♣ ruled over the A♣ 10â™ of AVAN77. A third ace would hit the 5♣ J♥ 8♥ Aâ™ Kâ™ board but the lady was the $10,000 card for stofzuiger as the queen kicker player giving stofzuiger73 this week’s Sunday Warm-up title!
$750,000 Guarantee Sunday Warm-up results (03-13-11)
(* denotes part of three-way deal)
1. stofzuiger73 (Netherlands) *$151,696.94
2. AVAN77 (Russia) *$111,599.54
3. radik-dn (Russia) *107,277.43
4. crow1975 (Germany) $58,906.90
5. Polse68 (Denmark) $44,310.50
6. Olis2 (Norway) $33,884.50
7. PlayaPlz (United States) $23,458.50
8. Biggest_Fi5h (Finland) $13,032.50
9. hitthehole (United Kingdom) $8,340.80
