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Home / Uncategorized / Leqenden goes for legend status, wins 2nd Super Tuesday of year (12/22/15)

The holidays are upon us, and a big field of 513 players — up from the last few weeks — came out for this week’s Super Tuesday looking to earn a year-end bonus.

From that group Leqenden of tiny Belarus would emerge as this week’s champion, winning PokerStars‘ weekly $1,050 no-limit hold’em tournament for a second time this year after having won it earlier in February. Just three weeks ago Leqenden finished fourth in the Super Tuesday as well, adding to that score another nice one of $97,470 tonight.

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The big turnout meant a prize pool of $513,000 (besting the $450K guarantee). About five-and-a-half hours into the tournament the money bubble burst, and with 63 players remaining Grayson “gray31” Ramage was sitting in first position in the chip counts.

A little over two hours after that they were down to 18, with Ramage having recently been knocked out in 21st for a $3,078 cash and shuv28 the new chip leader.

fjaluz (18th), spidey_85 (17th), and dragonwarior (16th) next went out, picking up $4,104 apiece. They were followed to the rail by robinho (15th), TheAriton (14th), and aiamolinbaby (13th) who each earned $5,130. Then stuupid5 (12th), Ami “UhhMee” Barer (11th), and Rasmus “RasA86” Agerskov (10th) were knocked out, with those three taking away $6,156 each from the prize pool.

Whith shuv28 still on top and the nine-hour break just about to arrive, the final table was set.

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Seat 1: Brooklyn1909 (Germany) — 278,709
Seat 2: Ondrej “Vinkyy” Vinklarek (Czech Republic) — 202,009
Seat 3: ILIOS72 (Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) — 179,304
Seat 4: NhFy (Sweden) — 375,162
Seat 5: jayelliot171 (United Kingdom) — 261,640
Seat 6: shuv28 (Israel) — 489,045
Seat 7: Leqenden (Belarus) — 202,108
Seat 8: BillLewinsky (Belgium) — 276,382
Seat 9: IAKEVIN (Guinea) — 300,641

The final table was nearly a half-hour old when BillLewinsky lost a huge flush-over-flush hand versus shuv28 to be knocked down to less than a small blind. All in on the next hand versus two opponents, one of whom was Ondrej “Vinkyy” Vinklarek with what turned out to be a winning hand of pocket kings, BillLewinsky would soon be sent to the rail in ninth.

The blinds increased to 5,000/10,000, then a hand arose that saw Ondrej “Vinkyy” Vinklarek min-raise to 20,000 from the cutoff, then ILIOS72 three-bet to 42,368 from the button. The blinds got out, then Vinklarek shoved all in for almost 203,000 and ILIOS72 called in a snap.

Vinklarek had picked up Kâ™  K♦ , but this time he’d run into the Aâ™  A♦ of ILIOS72. The board ran out 3♣ 7â™  J♦ 10♦ J♣ , and suddenly Vinklarek was on the rail in eighth.

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Ondrej “Vinkyy” Vinklarek
A few minutes later jayelliot171 min-raised to 20,000 from UTG, NhFy called from the big blind, and the flop came A♥ 9♦ K♣ . NhFy check-called a bet of 30,000 from jayelliot171, then checked again after the J♣ fell on the turn. At that card jayelliot171 fired all in for a little less than 158,000, and NhFy called.

jayelliot171 had Q♠ J♠ for a pair of jacks and a gutshot draw while NhFy had K♠ J♥ for two pair. The K♦ river then improved NhFy further to a full house, and jayelliot171 was done in seventh.

They crossed the 10-hour mark of the tournament, then it was Brooklyn1909 open-pushing from early position for 53,134 (not quite four big blinds) and getting two callers in shuv28 (small blind) and Leqenden (big blind). The two live players checked both the 5♣ 8♠ 4♠ flop and J♦ turn, then when Leqenden bet at the K♣ river shuv28 let it go.

Leqenden turned over Kâ™  2♦ for kings, better than Brooklyn1909’s A♥ 5♥ , and the latter was out in sixth.

Just three hands later, IAKEVIN opened with a 3x raise to 42,000 from the button and NhFy called. Both players checked the 5♥ 4♥ 6♣ flop and 3♦ turn, then after the 7♥ river put a straight on the board NhFy bet 154,000 and IAKEVIN called all in for 144,868.

IAKEVIN was playing the seven-high straight on the board, but NhFy had 9♣ 8♣ for a nine-high straight and IAKEVIN was eliminated in fifth.

Soon after that hand ILIOS72 opened from UTG for just over 30,000 (a little more than 2x) and was called by Leqenden in the big blind, and the two saw a flop come 9♦ 4♣ 8♠ . Leqenden checked, ILIOS72 bet 42,000, and Leqenden called. The turn was the J♣ . Leqenden checked again, and this time ILIOS72 bet 84,000. Leqenden responded by check-shoving and ILIOS72 called all in for a little less than 298,000.

ILIOS72 had Aâ™  Jâ™  for top pair of jacks, but Leqenden had two pair with J♦ 8♥ . The river was the Q♦ , and ILIOS72’s Super Tuesday run had ended in fourth.

That hand helped Leqenden nudged into first position with three left with about 948,000, just a bit more than shuv28’s 944,000 with NhFy in third with about 673,000.

Less than 10 minutes later the blinds were 8,000/16,000 when Leqenden raised to 36,000 from the button and NhFy called from the small blind. Both checked the 9♦ J♦ A♥ flop, and NhFy checked again after the 9♠ turn fell. Leqenden bet 51,456, and NhFy called.

The river brought the 2♠ and another check from NhFy. Leqenden responded with a bet of 106,612, NhFy check-raised all in for 383,380 total, and Leqenden called. NhFy had K♦ J♠ for jacks and nines, but Leqenden had A♣ 10♠ for aces and nines and NhFy was out in third.

Heads-up play thus started with Leqenden sitting on about 1.47 million with shuv28 at 1.08 million. There was a brief pause early on for some deal talk, but that was quickly scuttled and play resumed with Leqenden building a big lead before shuv28 managed a double with pocket queens versus Leqenden’s pocket eights.

A few minutes later they’d crossed the tournament’s 10-and-a-half-hour mark, then a little after that came this week’s final Super Tuesday hand.

After shuv28 min-raised to 32,000 from the button, Leqenden three-bet to 96,000. shuv28 responded with an all-in shove for 666,250, and Leqenden was quick with the call.

Leqenden: 8♦ 8♣
shuv28: Q♣ 7♥

It was pocket eights again for Leqenden while shuv28 had the “computer hand” and needed to improve to survive. The board ran out J♦ A♥ 4♦ , then K♦ , then 6♥ , meaning the eights had held. Leqenden had done it again — winning another Super Tuesday!

Congratulations to Leqenden for winning a second Super Tuesday of 2015 and a nice holiday bonus of more than $97K!

12/22/15 Super Tuesday ($1,050 No-Limit Hold’em) results
Entrants: 513
Prize pool: $513,000.00
Places paid: 63

1. Leqenden (Belarus) $97,470.00
2. shuv28 (Israel) $71,820.00
3. NhFy (Sweden) $52,582.50
4. ILIOS72 (Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) $40,014.00
5. IAKEVIN (Guinea) $28,215.00
6. Brooklyn1909 (Germany) $21,802.50
7. jayelliot171 (United Kingdom) $16,672.50
8. Ondrej “Vinkyy” Vinklarek (Czech Republic) $11,542.50
9. BillLewinsky (Belgium) $8,515.80

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Martin Harris is Freelance Contributor to the PokerStars Blog.

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