GGPOKER

As fast as the GGPoker micro Festival began, it ended. Jumping from the World Festival in the micro Festival may have felt like jumping between diametrically opposed series, but in reality, it was more of an amuse-bouche leading to the launch of the biggest live series ever, the grandaddy of tournaments, the World Series of Poker -but more on that and it’s record setting ways next week.

Overall, the $10 Million total guarantee was exceeded with a total prize pool of $12.3 Million, from nearly 2 million total entrants. For those that joined us, thank you and we hope you enjoyed the series. For those that missed it, we hope to see you next year. But enough of this lets see who won.

Each of the events in the tournament series was split into either 2 or 3 versions, a No Limit Hold’em, a Pot Limit Omaha, and a KO version with a variety of low buy-ins and relatively huge guarantees. More than enough variety for everyone to find something to enjoy.

If you didn’t look, trust us when we say there are too many tournaments to highlight every winner as much as we would like to, but we will review the winners of each tournament with a $100K or greater guarantee – which is crazy when you remember that the buy-ins are no more than $25.

The first and smallest of the big guarantee events was event 161-NLH: Sunday Hundred Grand. This $15 buy-in freezeout tournament offered a guarantee of $100,000 which attracted 7,834 entrants, creating a total prize pool of $101,968.20. The event took a total of 10 hours to run and at the end, it was ‘It96’ defeating ‘Julio Steffen’ after a deal was struck that saw the final 2 Brazilians earn $9,199.69 and $8,967.04 respectively.

The previous week, the exact same event ran. Event 109-NLH: Sunday Hundred Grand, had the same $100K guarantee and $15 buy-in. The difference was in the number of players. This edition of the event attracted 7,696 players creating a prize pool of $106,204.80. The event took nearly 11 hours to complete, culminating with the heads up battle between ‘jjjjFinger’ and ‘Nomade1308’ that ended with the former eventually winning the $10,766.39 top prize.

Event 158-NLH was the $25 GGMasters Sunday Special Edition. Another $100,000 guarantee had a total of 4,798 players vie for the championship. The $12,058.65 top prize from the $110,354 prize pool went to ‘NapoleOFF’ after over 10 hours of play.

The smallest of the Main Events was the micro Omaholic Bounty MILLION$ which ran the final day on June 25th. Dozens of the $5.40 Day 1’s ran for this even leading up to the last week. Of the total 22,860 entrants, only 1,964 survived to Day 2 to try and earn a share of the $114,300 prize pool and ever increasing bounties. When the final hand was dealt, it was ‘nikitaarhas’ claiming the victory after a 4-way deal. He earned $2,634.96 from the chop and an additional $2,634.96 in bounties plus the well deserved victory.

Back on June 18th with Event, 106-NLH was another $25 GGMasters Sunday Special Edition. This edition of the event attracted 5,224 players which created a prize pool of $120,152 on a guarantee of $100,000. The 10 hours the tournament took was enough for the final 2 players, ‘huower’ and ‘astakos13’ to chop at the end with the two players earning $11,622.78 and $11,024.78 respectively.

The only non-Sunday event to surpass the $100K mark, was the Saturday Secret KO [Mystery Bounty]. And it happened both Saturdays. The $10.80 buy in tournament saw 15,000 players partake in the June 17th edition of the event. The $154,500 prize pool tournament was won by ‘OKTRO’ for $7,214.19 plus $272.70 in bounties. The biggest piece of the pie went to the 151st place finisher ‘Kingcobra398’, who found the biggest bounty and earned $10,003.30 in bounties. The June 24th event didn’t quite reach those lofty heights but still saw 12,306 players join to create a prize pool of $126,751.80. The nearly 9 hour event ended with ‘gibor1’ taking top spot and earning the $6,112.53 top prize plus $337 in bounties. The biggest prize winner of the event was ‘StajeLjubav’ who found the $10,000 bounty to add to the $32.42 earned for finishing 302nd. You never know with a Mystery Bounty.

The three big events of the micro Festival were the Omaholic Mystery Bounty, the micro Global MILLION$ – both running on June 18th – and the Mystery Bounty Main Event on June 25th.

When the Omaholic Event final stage began, only 1,916 of the initial 20,673 entrants had survived. Play was quick as the tournament ended just over 6 hours later with ‘Drupada’ defeating ‘DE PUNISHER’ for the top prize of $8,787.88. It was however ‘Myt1meSick’ in 834th and GotuStacked’ in 50th that earned the biggest share of the $212,931.90 prize pool with $10,020.40 and $14,461.80 in earned bounties respectively for the two players.

The micro Global MILLION$, which ran concurrently with the Omaholic event, ended with a total prize pool of $279,335, well over the $200,000 guarantee. A total of 60,725 entrants gave a shot to survive to the second day, of which only 6,964 did. It took just 8 hours to sort through the survivors to find ‘Daniel_Zhu’ as the last survivor. For the efforts, he earned $18,407.63 in this tournament which carried just a $5 buy-in.

The main event of the series, the Mystery Bounty Main Event ran its final day on June 25th. This $10.80 buy-in mystery bounty attracted 123,802 (that is not a typo) players to try and become the champion. The final table started with the $1 Million guarantee being smashed as the total prize pool swelled to $1,275,160.60 as the 11,598 final day combatants battled it out for the $40,107.80 top prize and, more importantly, the top bounty. Playing out over 10.5 hours, when the last hand played, it was ‘Sickovic’ claiming the victory and top prize over ‘TheSinkingFish’ who was consoled with $28,360.53. The biggest winner of the day was ‘BusOrTrain’ – although after this score, he may just get a car. While being knocked out in 693rd is never a good feeling, ‘BusOrTrain’ did capture the biggest share of bounties and earned $79,026.20 plus $109.57 for placing in the money.

That is all for the microFestival this summer. Now we can all sit back, relax and comfortably enjoy the view from the rail of the absolute party that is in Las Vegas for the World Series of Poker. If you are planning on playing, good luck and while you are in Vegas, stop by the GGPoker Players Lounge….you never know what mysteries you’ll find.

From the Desk of the Wordsmith

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