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Home / Uncategorized / Super Tuesday: poker@luffyD survives competitive table for $57K victory

Stacked line-ups are not unusual in the Super Tuesday. Players who succeed here are typically the kind who do well anywhere. So it was hardly surprising that, with six players left, picking out the winner was difficult. While everyone seemed a coin-flip away from the title, play continued for two more hours before long-time Latvian grinder Guntis “poker@luffyD” Aleskins prevailed to claim this week’s title.

Nine hours of poker left WCOOP 2017 finalist DaanOss with one of the larger stacks with ten left. But soon everything went against the Dutchman, starting with a coin-flip against short-stacked past TCOOP champ Mike “MikeyGG3” Gentili. Then, shoving on the button with A♦ 5♦ , MikeyGG3 called with Aâ™  Q♥ , which held up. An orbit later DaanOss, with ten bigs, called all-in with A♥ 5♣ . poker@luffyD was the favourite with A♣ Q♥ and stayed aead. DaanOss was out on the final table bubble.

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Seat 1: Aaron “AaronBeen” Been (777,104 in chips)
Seat 2: D_DIGGLER99 (540,779 in chips)
Seat 3: Mike “MikeyGG3” Gentili (460,932 in chips)
Seat 4: ross_654 (1,074,814 in chips)
Seat 5: Proudflop (426,417 in chips)
Seat 6: Guntis “poker@luffyD” Aleskins (1,694,719 in chips)
Seat 7: Dominik “Bounatirou” Nitsche (1,395,036 in chips)
Seat 8: Charlie “JIZOINT” Combes (568,807 in chips)
Seat 9: exitonlyKK (686,392 in chips)

This was a top-of-the-line Super Tuesday final table line-up. There was four-time WSOP bracelet winner Dominik “Bounatirou” Nitsche, most recently seen winning the WSOP Europe High Roller for One Drop earlier this month. He was returning to the Super Tuesday final for the first time since 2015.

Dominik Nitsche

Dominik “Bounatirou” Nitsche

The week before Nitsche’s One Drop win he was third at the ACOP 2017 Main Event, behind Allan Lau and his tablemate tonight, Aaron “AaronBeen” Been. Been was appearing at his third Super Tuesday final table of 2017 after previously booking a win and a sixth-place finish.

Aaron Been

Aaron “AaronBeen” Been

Former Super Tuesday winner and runner-up (and two-time SCOOP winner) Charlie “JIZOINT” Combes was back in the mix, while past Sunday Million and Sunday Warm-Up champion D_DIGGLER99 was making his second consecutive appearance after finishing third in last week’s Super Tuesday.

Proudflop was back after finishing both seventh and third in the Super Tuesday during October 2017. And leading them all was former WCOOP and Sunday Million runner-up Guntis “poker@luffyD” Aleskins, who came close but bubbled the Super Tuesday final back in March of this year.

Guntis Aleskins

Guntis “poker@luffyD” Aleskins

MikeyGG3 was the first casualty. With 19 big blinds, he stole the blinds a few times and then picked up K♣ K♦ in middle position, min-raised to 60,000, and shoved for 713,342 after JIZOINT three-bet from the small blind. JIZOINT called the fourth bet with A♦ A♥ and flopped top set. MikeyGG3 was out in ninth.

Proudflop’s trajectory was like MikeyGG3’s. The short stack, he managed a few early steals but not much else. After MikeyGG3’s demise Proudflop open-shoved with Q♦ 10â™  . JIZOINT called in the cutoff with A♦ 9♣ . Once again there was an ace on the flop. A queen on the turn was too little too late. Proudflop was out in eighth.

ross_654’s bankroll exploded this spring after three final table appearances, including a SCOOP win. He was in decent shape with 704,000 seven-handed. Then he picked up Aâ™  K♦ in the small blind and moved all-in over the top of an 82,000-chip opener from exitonlyKK. poker@luffyD called with A♣ Qâ™  in the big blind but both lost when Q♦ Q♣ held up on a jack-high board, giving exitonlyKK, a long-time grinder with more than $1 million earned on PokerStars, the pot and the chip lead. Left with ten big blinds, ross_654 moved in on the button with Aâ™  K♣ . Bounatirou, calling with A♣ Jâ™  , flopped a jack, ending ross_654’s run in seventh.

The six-handed table left lots of room to play poker.

That left six, and everybody took a turn at avoiding elimination in a coin flip against A-K.

D_DIGGLER99 started things off with 6♣ 6♥ against Bounatirou. Then Bounatirou did it with 4♣ 4♦ against JIZOINT, and AaronBeen’s 9♦ 9â™  flopped a set to beat exitonlyKK’s A♥ Kâ™  . The streak was only broken when JIZOINT and D_DIGGLER99 picked up pairs (and probably thought the other held Big Slick); JIZOINT’s 10♦ 10â™  remained ahead of D_DIGGLER99’s 9♦ 9♥ to leave the latter with less than a big blind. Two hands later D_DIGGLER99’s second consecutive bright shining star of a Super Tuesday run fizzled out in sixth.

Bounatirou followed. The action folded to him in the small blind. He jammed for 1.2 million with A♦ 3♦ . The only player who could have absorbed the loss, JIZOINT, dipped into the time bank, then called with 4♣ 4♦ . The board ran out 3♣ 2â™  J♣ 5♦ 9♦ to end Bounatirou’s tournament in fifth.

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AaronBeen doubled next with A♣ J♣ against JIZOINT’s A♦ 9♦ . poker@luffyD open-shoved with K♦ 7♦ in the small blind, making a flush to survive after JIZOINT called with K♣ 10♣ . Then he rivered an ace with A♣ Kâ™  to topple AaronBeen’s pocket fours, taking the lead. AaronBeen then chopped one pot, and followed it up by turning a pair of aces with A♦ 4â™  on the next hand to beat exitonlyKK’s J♣ Jâ™  .

The break didn’t change exitonlyKK’s fortunes. The Canadian grinder open-shoved with K♣ Q♥ , losing to AaronBeen’s A♥ 3♦ . JIZOINT survived on the next hand, hitting a set with 7♥ 7â™  to crack poker@luffyD’s Q♦ Q♥ , and then doubled into the lead against poker@luffyD, this time with A♥ Kâ™  against A♦ 8♥ . That set the stage for JIZOINT to open all-in with Aâ™  7â™  two hands later. exitonlyKK called with Jâ™  10â™  . Both made a flush on the 8â™  Qâ™  Kâ™  , leaving just one out – the 9â™  – to save exitonlyKK. It didn’t appear. exitonlyKK’s second-best career cash ended in fourth.

JIZOINT went from leader to desperate short stack in 17 minutes.

The volatility continued. JIZOINT had 4.4 million chips against the combined 3.2 million of the others, but was soon the short stack after a sustained onslaught from poker@luffyD, who without taking down a single seven-figure pot managed to crest the 4 million mark, leaving the others to fight over second place.

Then things swung in the other direction. AaronBeen picked up steam, doubling to 4.4 million with A♦ J♦ against poker@luffyD’s A♥ 5♥ . The outsider in all this was JIZOINT. His stack shrunk until he finally jammed for 889,130 with 8♦ 8♥ after poker@luffyD min-raised the button with Q♥ 10♥ . A ten on the flop gave JIZOINT a third-place finish to go with his previous first and second place performances.

AaronBeen – 4.37 million
poker@luffyD – 3.25 million

poker@luffyD quickly levelled the scores. Then poker@luffyD limped on the button with Aâ™  10♥ and called AaronBeen’s raise to 320,000. He floated for 432,960 on the 8♦ 7♣ 3♥ flop and then bet 589,850 when AaronBeen checked the 5♥ turn. AaronBeen called there, shoving when the A♦ hit the river. His 6♣ 5♣ was no good against poker@luffyD’s rivered pair of aces. A pair of fours with Qâ™  4♣ on the following hand topped AaronBeen’s A♥ 6â™  , bringing an entertaining final table to a close.

Guntis “poker@luffyD” Aleskins made up for his previous Super Tuesday final-table-bubble finish in the best way possible. Congratulations to him on surviving against a stacked line-up and in the process claiming the third-biggest cash – and the biggest outright win – of his career on PokerStars.

11/14/17 Super Tuesday ($1,050 NL Hold’em) results
Entrants: 305
Total prize pool: $305,000
Places paid: 44

1. Guntis “poker@luffyD” Aleskins (Latvia) $57,436.48
2. Aaron “AaronBeen” Been (Mexico) $42,687.86
3. Charlie “JIZOINT” Combes (Untied Kingdom) $31,726.55
4. exitonlyKK (Canada) $23,579.85
5. Dominik “Bounatirou” Nitsche (United Kingdom) $17,525.02
6. D_DIGGLER99 (Canada) $13,024.96
7. ross_654 (Mexico) $9,680.42
8. Proudflop (United Kingdom) $7,194.70
9. Mike “MikeyGG3” Gentili (Canada) $5,347.22


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Jason Kirk is a Freelance Contributor to PokerStars Blog.

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