THE DAILY SCOOP – GGMillion$ Season 2023 Paradise High Rollers Championship
Samuel Mullur Wins GGMillion$ High Rollers Championship for $2.72 Million and WSOP Bracelet
This week’s GGPoker GGMILLION$ didn’t take place online at GGPoker for the usual $10,300. Instead, the price was $25,000 to play and the prizepool grew to over $13 million. The top prize was a juicy $2.72 million… but the location was the biggest win of all. Taking place as part of the WSOP Paradise festivities on Atlantis Island in The Bahamas, this week’s GG MILLION$ winner was an Austrian superstar in the making who will look back on the event as the biggest moment of his poker career so far – Samuel Mullur.
Power Play in Paradise
A mammoth field of players provided thrills and spills throughout in the GGMILLION$ this week, as 533 entries put up the $25,000 buy-in to take part in one of the biggest events on the poker calendar. That prizepool, which officially stood at $13,325,000 saw some of the biggest names in the game take part. Anyone who made Day 2 was in the money, with 80 players being paid.
These included smaller cashes for players such as 2022 WSOP Main Event winner Espen Jorstad (71st for $42,200) and 2021 WSOP Main Event winner Koray Aldemir (64th for $46,100), with second place on the All-Time Money List Justin Bonomo (58th for $46,100) and regular GGMILLION$ presenter Jeff Gross (50th for $52,700) making a great profit but missing out on the final table. GGPoker Global Ambassador Daniel Negreanu made it all the way to 26th place for a score of $77,000.
Once the final nine had been reached, there was a minimum payout of $208,300 for the next players to bust. As it happened, that player was Ukrainian Renat Bohdanov, who moved all-in with ace-three and was called by German player Daniel Smiljkovic with ace-queen. The hand held with ease as the final eight players confirmed, that’s where the action ended on the penultimate day. The remaining eight would return for a showdown, all vying for the $2.7 million top prize and the most coveted WSOP bracelet of the WSOP Paradise series so far.
Slaying the Matador
Smiljkovic ended Day 2 with an elimination, and began Day 3 the same way. Canadian GGMILLION$ regular Matthew Stumpf busted with the same hand as Bohdanov, moving all-in with ace-three. This time, Smiljkovic had ace-jack instead of ace-queen, but the outcome was the same. A board of A-Q-4-9-2 condemned the Canadian to an eighth-place finish worth $267,500 as the German player rocketed up the leaderboard.
With seven players left, it was a big player who busted next, as Spanish professional Adrian Mateos who has celebrated WSOP glory in his past on multiple occasions, crashed out for $349,400. All-in for just eight big blinds with pocket fours, Mateos, often nicknamed El Matador, needed to dodge either an ace or jack that would pair Smiljkovic’s ace-jack. The flop of T-6-2 seemed safe but a queen on the turn and king on the river completed an unlikely Broadway straight that sent Mateos to the rail.
Next to go was the Austrian player Klemens Roiter, who lost to his countryman Mullur, doubling up the eventual winner as Roiter’s king-jack couldn’t hold against Mullur’s queen-nine. Roiter was out in sixth place but earned $463,700 as Mullur pushed up the leaderboard in pursuit of glory.
Five! Four! Three!
Lithuanian player Arunas Sapitavicius was the next out in fifth place, earning $625,400 when he was also ousted by Mullur, this time with an ace-deuce against the Austrian’s pocket tens. That pot put Mullur in the box-seat with four left and the Austrian, who is part of Fedor Holz’ Pokercode stable, was the man to beat.
Actor Frank Brannan next eliminated the 2020 ‘hybrid’ world champion Damian Salas. The Argentinian shoved with king-queen but found himself dominated and defeated by Brannan’s ace-king. No help came on the eight-high board for Salas and he made his way to the cash desk for a fourth-place score of $856,800.
German player Daniel Smiljkovic had so much early momentum in the final, having scored a couple of early elimination to boost his own chances of lifting the bracelet but it was not to be. He shoved with king-nine and lost to Brannan’s ace-four. The board of J-T-5-6-2 saw Brannan make the heads-up as Smiljkovic went home in third with $1,192,300, the first million-plus result of the event.
Heads-up, Mullur had the chip lead with 86.3 million chips, while Brannan’s stack of 46m while not small, was the short stack. That switched round at one stage as Brannan made early ground to take the lead but a fatal call occurred when Brannan called off his stack hoping to seal victory with a turned top pair of jacks only to have been trapped by Mullur with pocket kings.
Soon, Mullur himself was king. Brannan shoved with a suited queen-ten and Mullur had the easiest of calls once more with pocket kings. Those cowboys shot Brannan down in flames on a K-8-8 flop, and the match was over after the turn revealed a six, as Brannan made do with 1,684,500 and Sam Mullur celebrated his first-ever WSOP bracelet – and the top prize of $2,726,300 – with a raucous rail at Atlantis on Paradise Island in The Bahamas.
You can watch all the action here.
| Place | Player | Country | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | Samuel Mullur | Austria | $2,726,300 |
| 2nd | Frank Brannan | United States | $1,684,500 |
| 3rd | Daniel Smiljkovic | Germany | $1,192,300 |
| 4th | Damian Salas | Argentina | $856,800 |
| 5th | Arunas Sapitavicius | Lithuania | $625,400 |
| 6th | Klemens Roiter | Austria | $463,700 |
| 7th | Adrian Mateos | Spain | $349,400 |
| 8th | Matthew Stumpf | Canada | $267,500 |
| 9th | Renat Bohdanov | Ukraine | $208,300 |
About the Author: Paul Seaton has written about poker for over 10 years, interviewing some of the best players ever to play the game such as Daniel Negreanu, Johnny Chan and Phil Hellmuth. Over the years, Paul has reported live from tournaments such as the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas and the European Poker Tour. He has also written for other poker brands where he was Head of Media, as well as BLUFF magazine, where he was Editor.