GGPOKER

GGMillion$ Won by Thomas Santerne for $237,000

The first GGMillion$ final table of the New Year had fans watching online and winning too as Jeff Gross, along with special guest co-commentator Benjamin Rolle, kicked off 2024 in style on GGPoker. A $980,000 prize pool allowed for a whopping top prize of almost a quarter of a million bucks, a fine reward for the $10,300 entry fee, won by French player Thomas Santerne, who started play in third place but ended it as the biggest earner of the night.

Hrabec the Hero as Play Begins

Roman Hrabec is a player who needs no introduction to fans of high stakes poker, with the Czech Republic player having earned over $2.8 million playing live on the felt. As incredible as those live tournament results in raking tournaments are, Hrabec has won even more online, and he began the first GGMillion$ final table of the year with a huge chip lead. Holding 114 big blinds, Hrabec was way ahead of his closest challenger, ‘Promoking’ from the United Kingdom, who held 92 big blinds.

Next in the chip counts: Thomas Santerne (60BB), Thailand’s ‘AMTten’ (40BB) and Chinese player ‘jack chan’ (27BB) featured in the top half of the leaderboard. Cyprus player ‘sohta61’ (25BB), Norway’s ‘A Martirosian’ (25BB), Hungarian Gergely Kulcsar (16BB), and Morocco’s ‘gs2022’ (7BB) brought up the rear.

The first player to depart went after half an hour’s play, as the short stack from Morocco shoved all-in with king-queen offsuit. Called by Kulcsar with pocket aces, the runout of A-Q-2-4-8 sent the Moroccan to the rail for the first final table cash of the year, a chunky $31,536.

Pocket Pairs Count for Fresh Air

While Kulcsar had won a crucial dominating hand, others relied on winning their flips to leap up the leaderboard. Among them was the Cyrpiot player ‘sohta61’, who took a big pot with ace-king against the Chinese player ‘jack chan’ with pocket jacks. Another pocket pair appealed to Kulcsar as he went all-in pre-flop with pocket sevens, but he started and ended his final hand behind the pocket nines of ‘AMTten’, and left for a score of $40,594.

Next to leave was Norwegian ‘A Martirosian’. They three-bet shoved pre-flop with pocket eights and was called by British player ‘Promoking’, who held ace-queen. A flop of A-Q-4 immediately set the Norwegian behind, and a queen on the turn ended matters, an insignificant three on the river confirming their departure in seventh place for $52,254.

An hour had elapsed and the chip leader when play began, Roman Hrabec, now held only a very slim lead from Thai player AMTten. While they battled at the top of the leaderboard, others scrapped for their lives at the bottom, among them China’s ‘jack chan’. They shoved with ace-king of clubs and were called by ‘sohta61’ with pocket sevens, which held through the 9-5-3-9-9 board with only one club. The Chinese player cashed for $67,262 in sixth as the final five now found themselves racing towards the finishing line less than an hour after final table play had started.

A Huge Flip to Win

‘Promoking’ lost a massive pot with king-deuce when ‘sohta61’ found two pairs – aces and tens – to call a massive bluff from the British player on a river when the board had fallen A-4-2-3-T. Soon after, the player from the United Kingdom had cashed for $86,581 when his pre-flop shove with nine-ten of hearts lost to AMTten’s seven-eight of diamonds, a heart-breaking board of 7-5-4-4-5 eliminating the British player before the final four.

Cyprus player ‘sohta61’ had won a nice pot with ace-ten but lost a more crucial one with an even better set of hole cards. Three-bet raising all-in with pocket kings, he was well ahead of Hrabec’s ace-king pre-flop, but after a safe flop of Q-4-2 was followed by a ten on the turn, an ace on the river ended the Cypriot’s hopes of victory in fourth place for $111,448 while catapulting Hrabec into the lead, holding 40% of the chips and only two opponents standing between him and the title.

A huge hand for a chip-leading pot saw play go from three-handed to heads-up. On a flop of J-T-4, ‘AMTten’ shoved with king-jack. Holding just 4,711 more chips than his opponent was Thomas Santerne, who had a big decision with pocket queens. Eventually calling, Santerne was delighted to see that he was ahead and when a three and ten completed the board, he scooped a pot of 6.1 million chips as the Thai player headed to the virtual rail for a third-place score of $143,458.

Heads-up began, with Hrabec now the underdog on 4 million chips. With only 100 minutes of action in the can, it took the best part of another hour’s play to find a winner. Hrabec never managed to take the lead, however, and while he did at one point surface to 4.6 million, he had less that 3.3 million when he called off his stack with ace-king pre-flop. Santerne had pocket jacks and only needed to avoid Hrabec hitting to be crowned champion. A board of 6-3-3-7-7 played out and Santerne had done it, the French player taking victory and the top prize of $237,700.

Watch all the action in the company of regular host Jeff Gross and this week’s special guest Ben Rolle right here:

Place	Player	Country	Prize
1st	Thomas Santerne	France	$237,700
2nd	Roman Hrabec	Czech Republic	$184,662
3rd	‘AMTten’	Thailand	$143,458
4th	‘sohta61’	Cyprus	$111,448
5th	‘Promoking’	United Kingdom	$86,581
6th	‘jack chan’	China	$67,262
7th	A Martirosian	Norway	$52,254
8th	Gergely Kulcsar	Hungary	$40,594
9th	‘gs2022’	Morocco	$31,536

2023 Week 34                                          2024 Week 2

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.