Friday, 29th March 2024 07:29
Home / Uncategorized / Sunday Warm-Up: Saintreine denies Berende for weekly title

The Sunday Warm-Up final table shaped to be a member-only party where the price of admission was $215 (cash or ticket) and winning a Major tournament at PokerStars. TCOOP, SCOOP, Sunday Million, and past Sunday Warm-Up champs lined up at the final table looking to add yet another Major title but all of them went away with less than first place funds. Saintreine would book a deal with Paul “padjes” Berende heads-up then defeated him to take away $70,005.05.

Read on for Saintreine’s road to victory.

Rolling into the final two tables Paul “padjes” Berende chipped up quickly to take the chip lead. If the name sounds familiar it should as Berende is a SCOOP (2012 Event #27-L) and TCOOP (2013, Event #17) champ along with making the final table here in December of 2013 (9th place).

While the players took over eight hours to get down to the penultimate table, quick bustouts by kidpro2012, DanisDAmanS, Sterling0815, and Super Tuesday champ PikkuHUMPPA left the tournament with just 14 players half way through the eighth hour.

Sunday Million champ Nick “gbmantis” Niergarth would stay alive during hand-for-hand play after his pocket deuces knocked off DaanOss’ pocket kings with a turned set.

The players would take brief five minute break as DaanOss managed to steal a triple-up to four BBs right before the interlude. Sure enough, DaanOss would push the meager stack on the first hand back holding 8A as the current chip leader Saintreine made the call with JK. Safe flop, not-so-safe turn 10 3 2 J 10 as Saintreine’s pair of jacks ended DaanOss’ tournament and started up the final table below:

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Seat 1: 07Papi (3673218 in chips)
Seat 2: Saintreine (6340881 in chips)
Seat 3: neeno1990 (1296402 in chips)
Seat 4: ROMDOM (2037288 in chips)
Seat 5: Tulkaz (619059 in chips)
Seat 6: gbmantis (1787384 in chips)
Seat 7: Dsavo (2611306 in chips)
Seat 8: mentalpshyco (1344264 in chips)
Seat 9: padjes (3110198 in chips)

If having a Sunday Million and two-time -COOP champ was not enough, Dsavo has made this tournament a personal piggy bank. The two-time Sunday Warm-Up champ (2010) and (2011) was nearly a three-time champ last year in May finishing as the runner-up.

Tulkaz would only last a few minutes into the final table. With the blinds at 50K/100K ante 10K the shortstack would shove 485,059 chips after the ten-high flop 6 5 10 holding top pair Q10. Unfortunately, neeno1990 was happy to call with a better kicker 10A as the board did not improve on the turn K nor river K. Tulkaz was not able to improve on a fourth place finish here back in 2010, earning $4,107.60 in ninth place.

Eight hands later Nick “gbmantis” Niergarth tried to push the chip leader Saintreine off a min-raise with a shove for 1.9 million chips from the big blind. Unfazed, Saintreine made the call with pocket sixes 66 flipping against Niergarth’s A9. The ace-nine would fail to connect 10 8 3 Q K ending Niergarth’s shot at winning the Million and Warm-up in eighth place ($6,617.80).

Paul “padjes” Berende would improve his chances of winning after knocking off 07Papi in seventh place ($11,181.80). Just three hands removed from doubling up himself, Berende willed 10A to victory over 07Papi’s KJ on the 8 3 6 5 10 board. The huge five million chip pot would put Berende into the chip lead with six remaining.

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Paul “padjes” Berende
Half-way through the ninth hour of play nenno1990 would get knocked down and got back up again after running ace-queen into mentalpshyco’s aces. Holding just under two BBs nenno1990 would run it up to a little more than a million chips with blinds up to 80K/160K ante 16K.

Then Saintreine decided to rain on the comeback parade with a bullying shove from the small blind holding J4 as neeno1990 made the call from the big blind with pocket treys 33. Saintreine’s flopped two pair J 4 Q 9 7 would send neeno1990 away in sixth place ($15,745.80).

Ten minutes before the end of the ninth hour, Dsavo would call it a day. The two-time champ would raise from the hijack seat as Saintreine three-bet from the small blind. Dsavo’s pocket eights 88 looked good enough to shove 2.85 million chips as Saintreine’s pocket aces AA eagerly called. The nine-high 2 4 9 3 9 board would deny Dsavo a third title once again in fifth place ($20,538.00).

The last hand of the ninth hour was also the last hand for ROMDOM. Much like Dsavo, ROMDOM was looking for another Sunday Warm-Up title after taking down this tournament in March (read here for the story on the player behind the avatar by Stephen Bartley). To go even further, ROMDOM is one of the few people to win the Sunday Million and Warm-Up and likely the only player who also has a WCOOP Main Event final table.

But, Saintreine is intent on watching the Game of Thrones finale without having to DVR it picking up pocket kings KK to defeat ROMDOM’s AQ on the 4 J Q 7 5 board ending ROMDOM’s latest deep Major run in fourth place ($27,384.00).

Five minutes into the tenth hour of play Berende and mentalpshyco decided to combine their stacks for a shot Saintreine’s monster stack. Holding 3.5 million (mentalpshyco) and 3.4 million (Berende) they would flip for the honor of taking on Saintreine. Mentalpshyco’s QK failed to catch on the 2 4 A 5 J as Berende’s pocket sixes 66 earned the near seven million chip pot. Saintreine took away the rest on the next hand as mentalpshyco earned $38,794.00 in third place.

A Dutch Ending

Saintreine and Berende immediately go into deal making mode conversing in Dutch. This author’s language barrier would prevent an understanding of the back-and-forth between the two remaining competitors.

After five minutes they would type “I agree” to the deal below into the text box as “padjes” remarked “he (Team PokerStars Online Pro Luka “LukaSteel” Kovač) fell asleep from this interesting conversation“.

Saintreine: $60,005.05
padjes: $57,672.85

With $10K left to play for Berende would need to overcome Saintreine’s 16 million to 6.7 million chip lead with blinds at 100K/200K ante 20K.

15 minutes in he did just that, taking down a 9.4 million chip pot preflop as they played a game of chicken. After Berende put in the remaining raise, Saintreine said no thank you and pushed the pot without any cards being flipped over.

However, three minutes later Saintreine would double-up to regain the lead and five minutes after that, it was all over.

With the blinds up to 125K/250K ante 25K Saintreine would min-raise as Berende shoved for 10 million chips holding pocket fours 44. This time Saintreine would not back down calling with pocket queens QQ. No reversal on the K A 3 3 9 board and Saintreine would earn $70,005.05 as this week’s Sunday Warm-Up champion!

PokerStars Sunday Warm-Up results (06-14-15):

Entrants: 2,282
Places paid: 324
Prize pool: $456,400.00

(* denotes part of two-way deal)

1. Saintreine (Netherlands) *$70,005.05
2. Paul “padjes” Berende (Netherlands) *$57,672.85
3. mentalpshyco (United Kingdom) $38,794.00
4. ROMDOM (Mexico) $27,384.00
5. Dsavo (United Kingdom) $20,538.00
6. neeno1990 (Germany) $15,745.80
7. 07Papi (Portugal) $11,181.80
8. Nick “gbmantis” Niergarth (Mexico) $6,617.80
9. Tulkaz (Denmark) $4,107.60

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