Love is in the air for all here at PokerStars where we’re celebrating our 40 Billionth hand promotion with free money at the cash game tables every millionth hand and an assortment of giveaways to help curb the cost of that dinner at P.F. Changs with a dozen red roses for those celebrating Valentine’s Day. For those who play MTTs, there’s a special $40,000 guarantee daily for the low cost of just 40 Frequent Players Points, the micro million this evening with a $40 buy-in and a $1 million guarantee (which got destroy as 40,864 players complied a $1.5 million prize pool) and a $40.00 cash bonus in the VIP store for 2,500 FPPs.

But, if you wanted to buy your loved one something more like say, a car, then winning the $750,000 guarantee Sunday Warm-up might be more helpful. Unfortunately, the money here isn’t given away but rather earned after buying in for $215 and going up against 4,557 other hopefuls all shooting for the $142,982.61 first prize.

At the bubble time with 675 players getting paid it looked like Team PokerStars Pro Steve Paul-Ambrose was set up for a final table run today but fell short in 67th place ($1,430.89). Instead it was Victor Ramdin carrying the Pro’s flag down to the last three tables and played the part of short stack ninja while climbing the payscale. With blinds at 30K/60K ante 6K and holding just 538K in chips Victor would open shove from the button holding A♣ 10♦ and trying to pick up the blinds or some lesser action. Instead he got kronkol spamming the call button with big slick A♦ K♠ from the big blind. The 9♦ 7♥ 6♦ opened up four more outs for the Team PokerStars Pro, the turned K♥ closed a few of them and the 7♦ shut the door permanently as Victor’s run ended in 22nd place earning $2,269.38 in the process.

On the bubble route666 tried to curl up into a ball with a short stack of just 801,362 chips after paying the big blind hoping for a walk, and looked good until smacl02 raised from the small blind enough to put route666 all in. Having less than five big blinds route666 made the call holding 9♠ J♦ and was ahead of the pressuring smacl02’s 6♦ 7♣ . smacl02’s small connector would hit the flop and river a straight however on the 5♥ 7♠ Q♥ 4♠ 3♥ board sending route666 off with bubble boy money in tenth place ($5,468.40) setting up the final table below:

Seat 1: jimsweats (1625682 in chips)
Seat 2: Bassduck (4889311 in chips)
Seat 3: heavenhell19 (389294 in chips)
Seat 4: smacl02 (7971672 in chips)
Seat 5: IPODpoker88 (1448493 in chips)
Seat 6: Catenaccio (5918772 in chips)
Seat 7: kronkol (9629056 in chips)
Seat 8: B DA cards (10307339 in chips)
Seat 9: mancrazy (3390381 in chips)

mancrazy would take a walk for the first hand but the next two hands had all-ins with calls. First, heavenhell19 found some quick salvation for a short stack in the form of pocket aces A♦ A♠ . They would hold up against the middle position caller B DA cards’ Q♦ J♥ after a little river flush sweat A♥ J♦ 7♥ 9♥ 8♠ . heavenhell19 claimed the one million chip pot to stay in the running for that $142,982.61 first prize. Not so lucky was fellow short stack IPODpoker88 who had just 1.4 million chips and 80K/160K ante 16K blinds to deal with. IPODpoker88 would open shove from early position holding Q♣ K♦ and didn’t get far as Catenaccio seated to the immediate left called with pocket jacks J♥ J♦ . The jacks would hold on the 6♠ 3♦ 3♥ 3♠ 10♥ board shipping 3.1 million chips to Catenaccio and sending IPODpoker88 back to search iTunes for some calming music to match his 9th place finish ($7,291.20).

Three hands later jimsweats would notch a double up with pocket aces holding against big slick of B DA cards for a 3.6 million chip pot. Finally the blinds caught up to heavenhell19 who was on borrowed time, trying to 3-bet B DA cards with a short stack of just 693,176. After the first raise it was only 213,176 more for B DA cards to call and he did with pocket fives 5♠ 5♥ setting up the coin flip with heavenhell19’s J♦ K♦ . No diamonds nor jack and kings would hit the A♥ A♣ 3♠ 10♠ 6♥ board as heavenhell19 perished into the poker tournament afterlife in eighth place ($11,392.50).

The players finally took a breath after the all-in explosion to start the final table until the blinds moved up to 100K/200K ante 20K.

There we found a three-way all-in involving B DA cards, mancrazy, and jimsweats all in preflop with B DA cards covering the other two.

B DA cards: Q♥ K♦
mancrazy: A♣ K♣
jimsweats: 9♦ 9♠

In the end the only thing that changed was the placement of chips as the pocket nines held up on the 2♣ J♦ 7♦ 5♦ 6♣ board as jimsweats took the main pot for 6.5 million and mancrazy covered jimsweats claiming the side pot worth two million.

Shortly after the break Catenaccio would become the mega stack after outflopping kronkol’s pocket queens with 10♠ 8♥ . kronkol tried to slowplay the queens by smooth calling Catenaccio’s open raise from the small blind, instead the queens were cracked on the 8♠ 10♣ K♦ J♣ 10♥ board when the money went in after the flop and a huge 15.1 million chip pot slid Catenaccio’s way.

Eight hands later Catenaccio would use those chips to take further command of the table. Bassduck was low on chips with just 2.3 million left and blinds still at 100K/200K ante 20K and decided to open all-in from early position with A♠ 6♥ . But, Catenaccio’s pocket black jacks J♠ J♣ were waiting on the button and quickly called. Sometimes the aces does not hit, and this board was one of those times 8♥ 10♦ 2♥ 4♠ 3♦ as Bassduck would have to find another pond to play in or on after finishing in seventh place ($20,506.50). This was Bassduck’s second Sunday Warm-up final table after grabbing 5th place for $34K last year (write up found here)

Blinds held steady again for the next up on the chopping block as mancrazy’s short stack of 1.7 million chips went into the middle from UTG holding 9♠ 10♠ . Folded around to the chip leader Catenaccio on the button who made the call with A♣ 9♥ . The rich got richer as Catenaccio would spike the ace on the flop K♦ A♦ 6♣ and had nothing to sweat by the turned 3♣ taking down the 3.8 million chip pot and mancrazy received $29,620.50 in sixth place.

B DA cards and kronkol would hook up preflop for a big pot after the blind moved up to 125K/250K ante 25K. Both held around four million chips, they would trade raises until the stacks pushed into the middle. Pocket sixes 6♥ 6♠ for B DA cards and 9♠ A♦ for kronkol with kronkol holding back 292,424 chips for later use. Both players would whiff on the 3♦ 7♣ 5♦ J♣ 5♠ board as the pocket sixes held to ship the 8.1 million chip pot to B DA cards leaving kronkol with the aforementioned scraps. Those scraps would get fed to B DA cards two hands later and kronkol took leave with $38,734.50 in fifth place.

The players tonight were the opposite of chatty, perhaps from having to shun their Valentine’s Day date in pursuit of a six figure payday as only Team PokerStars Pro Victor Ramdin filled the chat box.

Several hands later jimsweats was left sweating the bullets of smacl02. With the blinds at 125K/250K ante 25K jimsweats led off the betting with a 3x the big blind raise as smacl02 quickly re-raised to 2.1 million. After just a few ticks off the clock jimsweats pushed all-in with pocket eights 8♦ 8♠ and saw the bad news of smacl02’s snap call with aces A♥ A♣ . Zero excitement on the 10♦ K♥ K♦ 3♥ Q♠ board and smcal02 took over the chip lead with the 13.8 million chip pot and jimsweats headed to the rail in fourth place ($51,494.10).

smacl02 and Catenaccio started three-handed play nearly even in chips with B DA cards on the outside looking in:

Seat 4: smacl02 (21094131 in chips)
Seat 6: Catenaccio (18747705 in chips)
Seat 8: B DA cards (5728164 in chips)

But, smacl02 would snipe some big pots off Catenaccio as soon the chip towers leaned severely in smacl02’s direction as the blinds increased to 150K/300K ante 30K:

Seat 4: smacl02 (31126131 in chips)
Seat 6: Catenaccio (7250541 in chips)
Seat 8: B DA cards (7193328 in chips)

Five in row for smacl02 is how the tournament finished. smacl02 would take two pots preflop then split an all-in preflop with Catenaccio when both players turned over King-Ten but smacl02 had to sweat a flush freeroll. No flush came as the both players got their chips in middle preflop yet again on the next hand. 6♣ K♣ for Catenaccio and A♥ 5♠ for smacl02. It was smacl02’s night ending this one early after flopping two pair 5♥ A♦ J♠ and leaving Catenaccio drawing dead with the 8♦ turn. $75,190.50 for Catenaccio in third place as we moved quickly to the fastest heads-up play we’ve seen at this tournament. This was Catenaccio’s second third place finish in the Sunday Warm-up in just six months as in October 2009 he claimed $78K (write up here)

One hand.

B DA cards didn’t have time to wait around for aces and decided one was enough 3♣ A♦ to push 6.2 million chips preflop. As mentioned before it was smacl02’s night as he also held an ace 4♣ A♠ and made the call. Most of the time this ends in a push, instead it ended in a wheel for smacl02 on the 2♠ 5♣ J♣ A♥ 3♦ board who won the blink-and-you-missed-it heads-up battle in just one hand taking home the entire $142,982.61 first place prize. B DA cards also took home six figures, winning $106,178.10 as tonight’s runner-up.

Congras to all our players and be sure to check out the video highlights on PokerStars.TV later in the week.

$750,000 Guarantee Sunday Warm-up results (02-14-10)
1. smacl02 (Witney) $142,082.61
2. B DA cards (metrowalk) $106,178.10
3. Catenaccio (Hamburg) $75,190.50
4. jimsweats (St. Johns, NL) $51,494.10
5. kronkol (maasland) $38,734.50
6. mancrazy (San nicolas) $29,620.50
7. Bassduck (Ger) $20,506.50
8. heavenhell19 (sao paulo) $11,392.50
9. IPODpoker88 (Hamburg) $7,291.20

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