The Sunday Warm-Up’s name may mislead to imply “practice” for the Sunday Million, but seeing the prize pool of $761,000 and a first place prize of $98,930.00 a player should be happy with a deep finish while stretching their poker muscles. ely_cash41 (final table WCOOP Event #25 read the final table report here), Team PokerStars Pro Katja Thater’s husband Jan “50outs” von Halle, and The Omaholic (final table WCOOP Event #11 read the final table report here) all went deep tonight, finishing in the top 100.
Supa4Real looking for a second Sunday Warm-up victory in three months tonight after banking over $100,000 for his August win but fell short in 14th. Check out his victory lap here after defeating goodvibe1 heads up. nitbuster, with some impressive finishes in the WCOOP including top ten overall cashes in 2007 and a final table this year in Event #13 good for $110,215 also went deep tonight as well but succumbed to dave_steven9’s jacks versus his 9h-Th in 26th place.
After luluxxx and Ni_Liv raced for the final seat with luluxxx’s Kc-Tc proving victorious over the pocket nines of Ni_Liv after a Qs-Kh-Js-4c-4h board here’s how the final table started out:
Seat 1: Polyhymnia (2132170 in chips)
Seat 2: VBOOS (1394381 in chips)
Seat 3: groggy (2628054 in chips)
Seat 4: RoadV (2911120 in chips)
Seat 5: Schmufix (1416579 in chips)
Seat 6: Snookerfun (14034553 in chips)
Seat 7: Top-Hand (1796788 in chips)
Seat 8: luluxxx (4872313 in chips)
Seat 9: dave_steven9 (6864042 in chips)
Snookerfun held the chip lead for a solid hour before the final table and has done nothing but roll over the field heading into the final nine. His 14 million chips will prove to be handy considering the blinds started out here at 65,000/130,000 ante 13,000 and several players held under ten big blinds.
Quick start or false start could describe the second hand of the final table as two players got it all-in preflop. luluxxx fresh off bursting the final table bubble, raised from UTG to 390,000 folding around to RoadV in the cutoff who shoved for 2.9 million. The blinds got out of the way as luluxxx didn’t have to tank about calling and leaving 1.9 million behind with pocket aces (Ah-Ac). The black kings of RoadV were less excited to see the board run out 8s-4c-3d-8h-9d. Our ninth place finisher was on the road again after that cooler with an extra $6,544.60 in his pocket.
After losing an 8.7 million chip pot to Snookerfun, dave_steven9 was looking to regain some chips in a hurry and found himself tangled up with Top-Hand. The short stacked Top-Hand open-shoved UTG+1 and got luluxxx to his left to fold, but dave_steven9 decided to gamble a third of his stack and called with Td-Jd while the rest of the table checked in on the WSOP final table coverage (click here for the latest from the PokerStars Six). Top-Hand turned over the better hand of Ks-Qc but the flop of 4c-2c-Jh did not cooperate by putting out a pair of jacks for dave_steven9. The turn Qd sent Top-Hand back into the lead with queens, but the dirty river Jc sent the 2.8 million chip pot to dave_steven9 and Top-Hand went home in eighth place collecting $9,512.50 for his second best hand.
A three-way all-in usually result in a new chip leader at the final table but Snookerfun still had over twice the amount of second place luluxxx at this point when VBOOS, Polyhymnia, and dave_steven9 decided to push their chips into the middle pre-flop:
VBOOS: As-Ks
dave_steven9: Qh-Qd
Polyhymnia: Jd-Js
The seven million chip pot left both VBOOS and Polyhymnia with their tourney lives at stake as dave_steven9 still had 2.2 million behind with blinds at 80,000/160,000 ante 16,000. A huge flop of 9s-8s-5d for VBOOS as he picked up the nut flush draw along with the six overcard outs. The 6c brought a three-way split possibility but it was the Ah on the river that shipped the huge pot to VBOOS and eliminated Polyhymnia in seventh place for a $15,220.00 payday.
Short-stacked groggy slogged into a double up against dave_steven9, and the short stacked players had to pick their spots with the blinds continuing to creep up on their tiny stacks. Schmufix had one move and that was all-in while holding just 800,000 chips. He pushed while in the small blind into the tourney bulldozer Snookerfun’s big blind who the made the call. Schmufix found himself in the lead with Ah-Jd versus the Qs-8d of Snookerfun and the flop 3h-4d-Js provided a wider lead with his pair of jacks. But, the turned Qc left Schmufix five outs on the river for the 1.8 million chip pot. Instead the 8c fell giving Snookerfun an unnecessary two pair and shipping the $22,830 sixth place money to Schmufix.
Eight hands later, the aforementioned short stack groggy also found himself trying to chip off a piece of Snookerfun in a similar blind versus blind battle. Again, the small blind had the lead with an ace as groggy turned over As-4c to Snookerfun’s Qd-Kh to race for the 2.8 million chip pot. groggy went from sleepy to restless as top pair fell on the flop of 6h-Th-Qs for Snookerfun. The Ks on the turn improved Snookerfun’s hand and the drowsy one’s outs shifted to the four jacks in the deck. 5d on the river told the bedtime story as groggy will sleep better tonight with the extra $30,444 in his PokerStars account.
luluxxx was the first to break off a piece of Snookerfun’s chip lead after flopping trip jacks to Snookerfun’s pocket queens for a six million chip pot. Two hands later with the blinds at 100,000/200,000 ante 20,000 VBOOS’ top pair of kings were good against Snookerfun’s second pair for a seven million chip pot as the wealth was spread across three players with dave_steven9 holding onto his short stack as the only player not to have eight digits under his name with only three million chips.
Much like the stomach flu this author has been battling, some sick things come out on the end on the virtual felt as well. With blinds at 125,000/250,000 ante 25,000 VBOOS completed the small blind after it folded around and Snookerfun decided to test VBOOS who had taken some hits to his stack and was down to 6.5 million. VBOOS responded with a three-bet to 2.75 million and Snookerfun made the call to see the flop of Kh-3s-7h. VBOOS led out with a feeler bet of 1.5 million, Snookerfun decided to end the touchy-feeling betting by pushing all-in with 6d-Kc. Happy to call with red pocket aces, VBOOS had a sizable lead as the winner of the 13.7 million chip pot would assume the chip lead. The 8s on the turn did nothing, but the 6h was the gut-punch to VBOOS as Snookerfun’s two pair on the river added to his chip lead and VBOOS got a $38,050 bad beat story in fourth place.
dave_steven9 continued his sly ways and doubled up a couple of times, once off Snookerfun and took a 13 million chip pot off luluxxx without even seeing a flop. That huge pre-flop pot left luluxxx with only 4.6 million chips and on the very next hand he decided to play for the rest of chips against the billiards fan. After a pre-flop raising battle, luluxxx and Snookerfun combined their chips for a 9.3 million chip pot. luluxxx did not have the two live cards he was hoping for as his Th-9s was well behind the As-9h of Snookerfun. The flop was a pretty 2d-Qc-Js added an up-and-down straight draw to the list of outs, but the 6d and 3d fell on the turn and river to no avail. luluxxx went into the corner pocket with $45,666.00 for third place.
The heads-up battle between Snookerfun and dave_steven9 was sure to be a test of wills versus looking for pocket pairs and premium cards. Here’s how they started out:
Snookerfun (22167256 in chips)
dave_steven9 (15882744 in chips)
Sure enough just four hands into heads-up play we crowned this week’s champion. After taking down a 10 million chip pot in the hand before with a 4.5 million chip river bet, Snookerfun took the rest of the dave_steven9’s chips with this hand:
With the blinds at a reasonable 150,000/300,000 ante 30,000 dave_steven9 had no reason to believe Snookerfun’s three-bet to three million had any weight behind it as the chip leader’s aggression was the reason why he acquired that stack. But as dave_steven9 pushed his 9.7 million chip stack in the middle pre-flop with 8h-Kc he found himself well behind Snookerfun’s pocket jacks (Jc-Js). The pre-flop lead was never threatened as the board came down 6h-5d-6c-3h-Tc and dave_steven9 advanced that short stack all the way to a $68,490 second place finish.
Call it fearless, call it aggressive, just call it a win after Snookerfun used his big stack to pocket all the balls tonight and chalked up a $98,930 victory in this week’s Sunday Warm-Up!
Sunday Million Warm-Up Results (11-09-08)
1. Snookerfun $98,930.00
2. dave_steven9 $68,490.00
3. luluxxx $45,660.00
4. VBOOS $38,050.00
5. groggy $30,440.00
6. Schmufix $22,830.00
7. Polyhymnia $15,220.00
8. Top-Hand $9,512.50
9. RoadV $6,544.60
