After taking a break of sorts during the recently completed Spring Championship of Online Poker, the Sunday Million was back again this week, online poker’s most popular weekly tournament. The final table featured a number of tough challengers, including the Brazilian Gustavo “PIUlimeira” Ferreira and Uruguay’s Alex “komarolo22” Komaromi. But in the end it was Viking8844 of Israel outlasting everyone to take the title and $178,173.58 first prize.
Viking8844 thus adds a Sunday Million title to a collection of wins that includes taking down a Super Tuesday back in 2013, coincidentally doing so just after that year’s WCOOP had concluded.
A big field of 5,696 turned out for this week’s Milly, thereby building a $1,139,200 prize pool that exceeded the tournament’s $1 million guarantee, to be divided among the top 810 finishers.
The tournament was well into its eighth hour when the field shrunk down under 100 players, at which point Viking8844 had assumed the chip lead as the only player with more than 2 million chips.
Nearly three hours after that they were down to the final 18, with Viking8844 still in the mix with an average stack and Ronak “hellrokr” Agarwal and tudobem88 then battling for the chip lead, both hovering around the 6.3 million-chip mark.
El Pulgoso (18th), jonjoe97 (17th), and Aqual89 (16th) were next eliminated, each earning $3,360.64. They were followed by danger0us (15th), ThePrusha (14th), and myleftfoot33 (13th), with those three earning $5,069.44 apiece. OffpoZition (12th), BARBARVSSA2 (11th), and v587nt (10th) were next knocked out, picking up $6,778.24 each from the prize pool.
With Viking8844 having build up a stack again and tudobem88 the new leader with over 15.2 million, the final table was underway.
Seat 1: Gustavo “PIUlimeira” Ferreira (Brazil) — 2,030,512
Seat 2: Ronak “hellrokr” Agarwal (India) — 8,893,054
Seat 3: tohazzz (Belarus) — 1,716,870
Seat 4: vidi.pkr (Romania) — 5,707,821
Seat 5: Viking8844 (Israel) — 12,555,142
Seat 6: tudobem88 (Mexico) — 15,256,880
Seat 7: VicFiorese (Brazil) — 2,146,929
Seat 8: Alex “komarolo22” Komaromi (Uruguay) — 3,786,982
Seat 9: lulaka68 (Russia) — 4,865,810
Not quite an orbit into the final table, the blinds were 100K/200K when lulaka68 raised to 400,000 from middle position, and it folded around to Viking8844 who three-bet to 976,876 from the small blind. lulaka68 called the reraise, then after the 7♣ 2♣ A♦ flop Viking8844 bet 796,876. lulaka68 responded with an all-in push for 3,448,934, and Viking8844 called.
lulaka68 showed A♠Q♠for and Viking8844 A♥ 8♠, meaning both had aces but the at-risk player had the better kicker. But the turn brought the 8♦ to give Viking8844 two pair, and after the 9♦ river lulaka68 was out in ninth.
They continued on and with the blinds up to 125K/250K it was tohazzz open-raising all-in for 681,870 from the cutoff seat and getting a caller in tudobem88 playing from the big blind. tohazzz had K♦ 10♦ and the preflop edge over tudobem88’s 10♥ 8♥ , and was still in front after the 9â™ 4♥ J♣ flop and Aâ™ turn. But the river was the 7â™ to complete a straight for tudobem88, and tohazz was down in eighth.
The tournament pushed forward into the latter half of its twelfth hour, and with the blinds up again to 150K/300K it was vidi.pkr open-pushing for 2,294,341 from the button and Viking8844 calling from the small blind. vidi.pkr had Q♦ 10♦ and needed to improve to beat Viking8844’s A♦ 7♥ , but the 7♣ 4â™ 6♦ 3♦ 4♥ runout provided no such improvement and vidi.pkr was sent railward in seventh.
Just a couple of minutes later LAPT4 Uruguay champion Alex “komarolo22” Komaromi open-raised all-in for 2,771,982 (about nine BBs) after posting the small blind, and Gustavo “PIUlimeira” Ferreira called from the big blind. Komaromi had A♣ 9♥ and Ferreira Kâ™ Q♦ , and while the 8♥ 8â™ 7â™ flop was safe for the all-in player, the Q♣ was not as it gave Ferreira a leading pair. The river was the 8♣ , and Komaromi had fallen in sixth.
Then came a hand that saw tudobem88 open-pushing from the small blind with K♣ 10♥ , and VicFiorese calling all-in for 2,631,272 total with A♥ 6♠after posting the big blind. The community cards came 10♣ 6♥ 3♠, then 4♥ , then 5♠, which gave tudobem88 a winning pair and stopped VicFiorese in fourth.
“Numbers??” asked Ronak “hellrokr” Agarwal in the chat box as three-handed play commenced, but Viking8844 fired back “I can look but I want 185 k” (that is, a figure representing more than the $178,173.58 scheduled to go to the winner). “loool” answered Agarwal, with tudobem88 adding “lol… not gonna happn.”
“You both can split the rest :)” added Viking8844, perhaps indicating the proposal was partly tongue-in-cheek. In any event no deal was done, and play continued.
Ten minutes later, it was Ronak “hellrokr” Agarwal pushing from the SB for 3,459,510 (about eight-and-a-half bigs) and Viking8844 calling from the BB. Agarwal had picked up K♦ Q♣ and had two live cards versus Viking8844’s 4♣ 4â™ , but the 10♣ 5♦ 2♥ A♦ A♣ board missed Agarwal’s hand and they were down to two.
Viking8844 started heads-up play with a better than 2-to-1 chip advantage with 39,034,629 versus tudobem88’s 17,925,371. They’d end up battling for just over half an hour, pushing the tournament deep into its 14th hour overall, with Viking8844 keeping the lead throughout that stretch except for a brief, fleeing moment.
Back on top and with about 41.4 million, a hand finally arose that saw Viking8844 limp in from the button for 500,000, tudobem88 shove for 15,449,880 total, and Viking8844 call.
tudobem88: K♠9♥
Viking8844: Q♦ Q♥
Viking8844’s big pair was best before the flop, and five cards later — 4♦ 7♣ 2♣ 7♥ 8♥ — it was still best, giving Viking8844 the pot and the title.
Congratulations to Viking8844 for successfully navigating the difficult Sunday Million waters to victory and collecting the big $178K-plus first prize.
5/29/16 Sunday Million ($215 No-Limit Hold’em) results
Entrants: 5,696
Prize pool: $1,139,200
Places paid: 810
1. Viking8844 (Israel) $178,173.58
2. tudobem88 (Mexico) $132,716.80
3. hellrokr (India) $93,813.12
4. VicFiorese (Brazil) $64,364.80
5. PIUlimeira (Brazil) $48,416.00
6. komarolo22 (Uruguay) $37,024.00
7. vidi.pkr (Romania) $25,632.00
8. tohazzz (Belarus) 14,240.00
9. lulaka68 (Russia) $9,113.60
Haven’t gotten a PokerStars account yet? Join the world’s biggest site now.
Martin Harris is Freelance Contributor to the PokerStars Blog.
Back to Top
