Typically, in these early hours of Monday morning, we’ve just finished crowning a new Sunday Million champion, one lucky PokerStars player having turned the proverbial matchstick into a lumberyard after weaving through a thousands-deep field. The Million is beloved by online players the world over for its generous structure and hefty prize pool and this weekend, with SCOOP in full swing, PokerStars took that deep-stacked structure one step further with the “medium” buy-in installment of Event #8, a two-day, $1.5 million guaranteed NLHE affair. The 6,274 players who ponied up the $320 buy-in enjoyed 10,000 chip starting stacks, 20-minute levels and blinds beginning at 25-50. The prize pool easily surpassed the guarantee, swelling to $1,882,200, and 900 places were paid, with first place prize money of $286,282.63 on the line. Now that’s a lot of bang for your tournament buck.
It took nearly seven hours of play before alloverbaby was eliminated on the money bubble in 901st place. Even then, players still had another six hours to go before play would be halted at the conclusion of Level 33.
Team PokerStars Pro was out in force for this event, with Alexandre Gomes, Andre Akkari, Bertrand Grospellier, Chris Moneymaker, Dario Minieri, Katja Thater, Leo Fernandez, Marcin Horecki, Maria Mayrinck, Noah Boeken, Peter Eastgate, Steve Paul-Ambrose, Vanessa Rousso, Victor Ramdin, William Thorson, and Ylon Schwartz all taking seats along with Friends of PokerStars Darus Suharto, Gualter Salles, and Tom McEvoy. Only Thorson and Gomes managed to make the money, however, finishing in 654th and 805th places respectively. Other notable screen names finishing in the money included Genius28 (117th), R_Brenes (225th), Mr_BigQueso (244th), USCPhildo (271st), Prefontaine (273rd), All_in_at420 (316th), kwob20 (359th), steamraise (407th), Assassinato (417th), ka$ino (541st), liberace (648th), #1PEN (655th), SirWatts (721st), and t soprano (729th).
If you’re a fan of the high-stakes cash game action on PokerStars, the screen name str8flushin5 will no doubt ring a bell. Often found sitting at the $500-$1,000 and above 2-7 triple draw and H.O.R.S.E. tables, str8flushin5 made a huge run in this event, vaulting to near the top of the leaderboard after winning this key three-way all in:
With ten tables remaining, Guimp seized the chip lead when his top pair, top kicker was able to fade his opponent’s open-ended straight draw. Guimp picked up even more steam only a short time later, getting his massive stack all in with A♦ 6♦ on a 9♣ 8♦ 2♦ flop against Strider1001’s A♥ Kâ™ . The 6♣ on the turn paired his kicker and he collected the 1.6 million pot when the river blanked out with the Jâ™ , increasing his stack to over 3,000,000. Guimp ended the night fifth in chips with just over 2.6 million.
Limpnfold24 had a healthy stack throughout most of the late evening and took the chip lead after a flop raising war with DPKRHUSTLER netted him a 1.6 million chip pot without having to show his cards. Limpnfold24 opened for 63,775 from early position, DPKRHUSTLER reraised to 147,999 from the small blind, and limpnfold24 called. DPKRHUSTLER led out for 147,999 on the 10♦ 7♣ A♣ flop, limpnfold24 raised to 392,855, DPKRHUSTLER three-bet to 659,999, and limpnfold24 moved all in for the 1,591,656 he had behind. DPKRHUSTLER gave up the ghost and limpnfold took down the pot, increasing his stack to 2.6 million.
As if that wasn’t a nice enough windfall for him, limpnfold24 made a straight flush only a short time later and was able to extract maximum value out of his opponent, taking his stack past the 4 million mark:
43 players will return to the virtual felt tomorrow at 16:30 p.m. EDT to play down to a new SCOOP champion. They’ll return to blinds of 17,500/35,000 with a 4,375 ante, the average stack at 1,459,069. Though the $286K and the bracelet is still on everyone’s minds, these players can rest easy tonight knowing that they’ve at least made ten times their buy-in. Not bad for a day’s work… even a long one. Get some rest, guys.
SCOOP Event #8-Medium Top 10 Chip Counts
1. limpnfold24 3,808,035
2. hymo1234 3,311,405
3. jimbo1994 2,660,004
4. smokinaces81 2,626,611
5. Guimp 2,616,976
6. KennyDav 2,616,330
7. bayoougieman 2,555,480
8. DPKRHUSTLER 2,109,207
9. oN PErKS 2,006,428
10. miraginox 2,003,643
There is still plenty of time to get your SCOOP on– there are satellites and events for every bankroll. Check out the SCOOP page for more information and follow the progress of your favorite players on the SCOOP player of the series leaderboard. If you missed out on any of the action, no worries. Pokerstars.tv’s SCOOP channel has all the highlights.
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