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Home / Uncategorized / Lonely at the Top but $82,325.10 Brighter for LoneHixx, Super Tuesday Champion
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Tuesday is probably the least talked about day of the week. Monday is frowned upon for being the start of the work week for many people, but Wednesday has a better reputation for indicating that the week is half over. Thursday is the day that people can begin thinking of the weekend, and Friday is the last day of a typical work week and sometimes the first day of a long weekend. And the weekend itself? It needs no description. But Tuesday, well, doesn’t get much credit – good or bad.

The Super Tuesday on PokerStars has changed all that. Players with higher bankrolls now anticipate the high stakes online poker tournament action of the Super Tuesday as much as they do the Sunday tournaments. And players who long to compete above their bankrolls can now satellite in to Super Tuesday action for a fraction of the cost. Tuesdays have come into their own, courtesy of PokerStars.

This Super Tuesday extravaganza brought 429 players to the table for the $1,000 + $50 buy-in tournament, and the $300K guarantee was surpassed by the creation of a $429,000 prize pool. And for the 54 players who made it into the money, their efforts were rewarded. But of course, those aiming for the final table were looking at the possibility of five-figure payouts and tournament fame. Thus, play slowed as usual with the last few tables in play.

And right there in the mix was a player who seems to be a staple in the big tournaments these days. Veronica “Princesa” Dabul” has been soaring in online events of late, and she is frequently the last Team PokerStars Pro standing. This week was no different, as she came back from numerous short-stacked episodes to stay alive and fight for a seat at the final table. Eventually, though, she pushed her ultra-short stack all-in with Q-J, which beat A-4 with help from the board. That double-up was followed by a second one on the next hand when her pocket aces held up. She was suddenly in sixth place on the leaderboard; her patience paid off.

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Just past the eight hour mark of the tournament after a somewhat lengthy hand-for-hand session, two players left at the same time. First, it was ComeGetThese, who called all-in for his tournament life to a raise by AmarulaBr. ComeGetThese had pocket fours, and AmarulaBr showed A♠ 10♣ . The board came 5♣ 3♥ 3♣ 2♠ 10♦ , and the river gave AmarulaBr top two pair and eliminated ComeGetThese in tenth place with $5,577.00.

At the other table, another hand was playing out that found siola all-in preflop from the big blind with pocket sixes, and original raiser ImDaNuts calling with pocket nines. The board blanked with K♥ Jâ™  7â™  5♥ 8♥ , and Sam “siola” Iola was ousted in ninth place. After taking down a Sunday Million in late 2009 and taking fifth place in the Super Tuesday only two weeks ago, siola had to settle for $7,121.40 in tonight’s event.

ImDaNuts leads 8-player final table

The final eight players were seated at Table 22 to play the remainder of the tournament, which began only moments into Level 30, with blinds at 2,800/5,600 and a 700-chip ante. The starting chip counts were as follows:

Seat 2: Princesa (59,152 in chips)
Seat 3: ImDaNuts (546,224 in chips)
Seat 4: makavelyces (423,153 in chips)
Seat 5: Comandr_Cool (360,595 in chips)
Seat 6: AmarulaBr (370,927 in chips)
Seat 7: LoneHixx (197,466 in chips)
Seat 8: jdtjpoker (120,149 in chips)
Seat 9: TeamWispy (67,334 in chips)

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It didn’t take long for a player to be eliminated from the final table. Short-stacked TeamWispy looked down at pocket nines from the small blind and made the push, but original raiser AmarulaBr decided to make the call for 38,914 more with 7♣ 5♣ . The flop hit AmarulaBr perfectly with 6♥ 3♣ 4♥ to make the straight, and the J♦ turn and 8♦ river only gave AmarulaBr an even higher straight. TeamWispy was gone in eighth place with $9,652.50.

Princesa was attempting a comeback from a short stack, and she doubled through ImDaNuts on the fourth hand of the final table. But she was ready to attempt it again soon after with A♦ 10♦ . She made that move from the big blind, and her 124,704-chip all-in move was met by a call from LoneHixx holding Aâ™  10â™  . The flop came 4♦ 3♥ 3â™  , which changed nothing, but the 8â™  on the turn brought LoneHixx closer to the flush, which ended up hitting when the 5â™  came on the river. It was a tough way to exit, but Veronica “Princesa” Dabul made a serious run without a lot of chips for the last several hours of her tournament. Improving on her 18th place finish in the March 3rd Super Tuesday, Princesa finished tonight in seventh place and took home $13,942.50 for it.

Big-pot poker takes AmarulaBr into top spot

Big pots were brewing at the table. One example was when makavelyces and ImDaNuts battled in a pot worth 357K that ultimately went to makavelyces. Another example was a big double-up for AmarulaBr through makavelyces, which took the former into the chip lead:

RSS readers click through to see replay

But it was ImDaNuts who seemed to lose momentum after holding steady near the top of the leaderboard for many levels. When makavelyces took a pot worth 205K from ImDaNuts, the latter was still holding more than 300K in chips but decided to get involved with chip leader AmarulaBr. The two went to see a 7♣ 4♥ 9♠ flop, and a bet from AmarulaBr and call from ImDaNuts took them to the J♥ on the turn. When ImDaNuts led out for 70,000, AmarulaBr check-raised all-in. ImDaNuts called with J♣ 10♣ for top pair and straight draw, and AmarulaBr showed pocket nines for the flopped set. An A♥ on the river finished things off, and recent Turbo Takedown winner ImDaNuts left the tournament in sixth place with $18,232.50 for the effort.

The shortest stack at the table was jdtjpoker, who looked down at K♣ Q♣ and pushed the stack all-in. When makavelyces called, original raiser LoneHixx got out of the way. Makavelyces showed A♣ Q♥ , which dominated his opponent, and the board produced 8♣ J♦ 5♥ 4♣ Q♠ to let the hands stand. And that sent jdtjpoker out in fifth place with $24,024.00.

Four-handed play began with AmarulaBr in a commanding lead with 857,252 chips, but makavelyces was sitting strong in second place with 541,319. Comandr_Cool and LoneHixx each had just over 350K. And dozens of hands were played going forward without much changing in the standings except that LoneHixx climbed a bit to hold a solid third place on the leaderboard.

LoneHixx lunges into lead

It was a big hand. AmarulaBr challenged with an all-in move, and LoneHixx called for his tournament life holding A♦ K♠ . AmarulaBr showed pocket sevens, and the board of 10♠ K♥ 6♥ 8♣ 10♣ gave LoneHixx the double-up and catapulted him into the chip lead, as AmarulaBr then struggled with third place out of the four remaining players.

Two battles between Comandr_Cool and AmarulaBr saw the exit of a chip leader. First, Comandr_Cool doubled through AmarulaBr with pocket tens over nines. That left AmarulaBr with less than 100K in chips, and it took only four hands for a move to be made. Comandr_Cool was the one who raised all-in preflop, and AmarulaBr called for 85,386 chips for his tournament life from the big blind with A♥ 2♣ . Comandr_Cool showed 10♥ 9♥ and found a pair on the 4♥ J♦ 10♦ flop. The Q♣ on the turn and 9♦ on the river finished the hand with two pair for Comandr_Cool and a fourth place finish for Leandro “AmarulaBr” Balotin, for which he was awarded $34,320.00.

Cool and in command…for a moment

Three-handed play saw Comandr_Cool jump ahead of LoneHixx to take the lead in the final stages of the tournament. Some significant pots taken from his opponents soon pushed him over the million-chip mark.

And as can happen in a tournament of this nature, everything changed. The following hand was a monstrous one, and the double-up of LoneHixx gave him a three-to-one chip lead over both of his competitors.

RSS readers click through to see replay

LoneHixx and makavelyces got involved to see a 6♦ J♦ 2â™  flop, at which point the raising war began. LoneHixx started it, but a raise and reraise led to makavelyces calling all-in for his tournament life with J♥ 9♥ and top pair. LoneHixx showed 8♦ 5♦ for the flush draw, which never got there, but the 5♥ turn and 5â™  river did make trips. That eliminated Cesar “makavelyces” Fuentes in third place with $45,045.00.

A valiant effort

Heads-up play began with LoneHixx holding what could only be called a dominating lead over Comandr_Cool.

Seat 5: Comandr_Cool (209,103 in chips)
Seat 7: LoneHixx (1,935,897 in chips)

The short-stack didn’t give up or push all-in too easily. A solid effort was made to be patient and pick a spot. Finally, with less than 150K in chips remaining and A♦ 5♦ in the big blind, Comandr_Cool pushed all-in. But it just so happened that LoneHixx was able to make the call with Aâ™  Jâ™  . The board came 6♦ 4♣ J♥ 8♣ 6♣ , and LoneHixx improved to two pair. Corey “Comandr_Cool” Burbick just missed a victory, as happened only days before in the March 28 Sunday Warm-up where he finished in third place. The second place tonight was worth $61,132.50.

Kenny “LoneHixx” Hicks became the Super Tuesday champion, for which he received $82,325.10 and the prestigious weekly online tournament title.

Super Tuesday Results for 03/30/10:

1st place: LoneHixx ($82,325.10)
2nd place: Comandr_Cool ($61,132.50)
3rd place: makavelyces ($45,045.00)
4th place: AmarulaBr ($34,320.00)
5th place: jdtjpoker ($24,024.00)
6th place: ImDaNuts ($18,232.50)
7th place: Team PokerStars Pro Veronica “Princesa” Dabul ($13,942.50)
8th place: TeamWispy ($9,652.50)
9th place: siola ($7,121.40)

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