PokerStars Sunday Million Winners 5.20.07
PokerStars had an historic weekend. On Saturday, the online poker room celebrated its 10 billionth hand dealt. Congrats to justine0003 for winning that. On Sunday, the site that's home to pros such as Barry Greenstein, Chris Moneymaker and Joe Hachem, added $250,000 to its Sunday Million tournament. Almost 11,000 people paid to play in this spectacular event, driving the prize pool up to an impressive 2.4 million.
2,619 folks made bank in the tourney. Each of the final tablists received at least five figures for their efforts. Leading the way into that final table was rf11527. He had amassed 21 million chips. He knocked out the first player from that last table with an Ac,9c. schulle1's Kh,7d proved no match against his opponent's back-door flush on the river.
tanbai, the eventual winner, moved into first place soon after that first elimination after doubling up through rf11257. oldschool043 was the next player to bid adieu to the table when his A,9 faced the dominant A,J of uncpeef…and an unkind board of Ks,8h,5h,Qc,Ad in which the kickers played. He took home about $17,250 for his play which is pretty darn good.
rushcezar was in a bit of a rush out the door. He went all-in with a Q,J of hearts and ran smack into 01180's Ah,Qc. When play got down to six-handed, everyone seemed to tighten up. There were no eliminations for what seemed like forever, but…it was probably less than an hour. (We tend to lose track of time, y'all.)
uncpeej eventually succumbed when his A,8, aka the Dead Man's Hand, was toppled by tanbai's Big Slick. Ouch!
01180 then turned up the heat and began picking up small pot after small pot to take over the lead. He sent rf11527 to the rail after hitting a lucky two pair with his K,7. jeffbeesdat, aka Jeff Gray, one of Pocket Five's scribes, was the short stack. He nursed it to fourth place and found himself all in with a 6,7 off-suit against PiMaster's pocket hooks.
As three-handed play began, 011180 had a commanding chip lead, but PiMaster made a straight to lessen the gap, however, he would lose most of his chips with pocket eights against tanbai's pocket cowboys. This was a major factor in his elimination which occurred on the very next hand, courtesy of tanbai.
tanbai and 01180 discussed a chip chop at this point, but couldn't agree on the amounts. They continued to play it out for a bit. When tanbai caught pocket jacks on the same hand 01180 pushed a lot of chips in with nines in the hole, the stacks were near even. The fellas made a deal based on the remaining chip count with $30,000 up for grabs for the winner. tanbai kicked it into high gear and caught two pairs on a 01180 bluff to end the eleven-hour tournament.
Here's how our finalists fared:
1. tanbai ( United States ) $187,901.00 2. 011180 ( United States ) $160,875.00 3. PiMaster ( United States ) $85,736.64 4. jeffbeesdat ( United States ) $59,991.36 5. rf11527 ( United States ) $45,661.44 6. uncpeej ( United States ) $34,974.72 7. rushcezar ( United States ) $24,530.88 8. oldschool043 ( United States ) $17,244.48 9. schulle1 ( Germany ) $12,144.00