Plenty Of Weekend Online Poker Action
Published: Monday, December 11, 2006 Online-Casinos.com
PLENTY OF WEEKEND POKER ACTION
Good turnouts and high winnings - what could be better?
The weekend's poker tournaments showed once again that the politicians can try to stifle poker, but its devotees are not easily stopped.
On the benchmark Poker Stars Sunday Million, 6 680 poker players turned out to generate another million dollar plus prize pool at $1 336 000, producing a top prize of $187 040 00. With 975 players in the money the atmosphere was electric and the playing fast and furious.
At the final table player MrRain looked unstoppable with a chip stack of 14 million, although seven of the nine other final table survivors had stacks between five and nine million, promising a tough contest.
Down to four players, and after battling for over 50 hard hands the survivors agreed to a four-way cut on that tempting winner's prize, with the amounts to each based on chip count, but playing on for the last $30 000. After some truly gigantic pots and blinds in the $300 000 / $600 000 range the heads up came to player Tulkaz against consistent leader MrRain. The final pot, the biggest of the night, was worth almost $51 million in chips, and with blinds of $400 000/$800 000, Tulkaz was eventually overwhelmed by a confident MrRain giving him the final $30,000 in prize winnings, the overall victory and the agreed first prize split of $135 942. Tulkas took home the second prize of $71 447, with the other two players in the final four getting $106 541 (wds2004) and $69 606 (gregghmsr) respectively.
Full Tilt's $350 000 guaranteed tournament saw 2 141 players entered, building the prizepool to $428 200 which enabled 306 players to cash, with the first prize set at just over $78 500.
The play was well up to the competitive and entertaining standards now common to Full Tilt events and the final three surviving players - dawgnutz, BrkBB and 'GB2005,' fought with skill and determination for half a hundred hands or more before GB2005 began to dominate. BrkBB was sent to the rail after being caught out in a bluff, leaving the field and the final heads up contest to GB2005 and the quaintly named dawgnutz.
On the last hand, with blinds of $50 000/$100 000, GB2005 pushed hard, emboldened with the confidence of a big chip lead and dawgnutz eventually succumbed, leaving GB2005 with a winner's cheque of $78 788, although the second prize of $48 386 made the event worthwhile for the dawg, too.
Bodog's $100 000 Guaranteed this week pulled in 981 players, just making the overlay but generating a $25 000 main prize and ensuring that 81 players were in the money.
Players Crazy Marco and TwoGunC pretty much led the way throughout, although there was plenty of action with back-to-back, big-pot knockouts culminating in a heads up between the two. CrazyMarco wrapped up the win against TwoGunC only two hands later, in grand fashion - making a flush to beat TwoGunC's aces.
