GGPOKER

It has been 2 weeks since the last update and we are now just over halfway through the very first GGPoker World Festival. And over $100 Million has been won, $2.5 Million is being played for right now as I am writing this, and another $100 Million is still guaranteed. You, the player, have won an average of almost $250,000 – a cool quarter million – per hour, every hour since the series began. Bigger really is Better.

Nearly 100 events have run since we last looked at the results, and just like last time, we will be only highlighting the bigger events, 2 from each tier, but first, let us take a glance at the 4 leaderboards, each worth $100,000 in prizes.

Starting with the Super High Leaderboard, which only pays the top 8, looks to have 2 frontrunners slowly pulling away from the rest of the field. Still sitting at the top of the board is GGPoker Team Champion Niklas Astedt with Matthew Stumpf close on his tail in 2nd. It’s a big jump to 3rd – the difference between 2nd and 3rd is the same as it is from 3rd to 14th – is Nicholas Maimone. Although the positions of the top 3 haven’t changed, the points obviously have and while the difference is fairly significant, with the number of events still to play, it is still anyone’s game.

The High Stakes Leaderboard is significantly tighter than the Super High with players steadily decreasing as you look down the list. Sitting atop the list is Polands’ ‘WhoBeatsMe’, who was in second place when we looked last. Nicholas Maimone fell off the High Stakes perch and is still hot on the tail of ‘WhoBeatsMe’ for the leaderboard’s C$25,000 top prize, while Markus Prinz is still sitting comfortably in 3rd on the leaderboard that pays the top 20.

On the Medium Stakes Leaderboard, there has been significant movement as the players at this stake level accumulate points on the race to get into the top 50 and climb their way to the #1 spot and its C$20,000 prize. Former 1st and 2nd on this leaderboard, ‘Hunter_Aze’ and ‘Bashka340’ respectively, have fallen to 17th and 7th. Both are still in the money, but not nearly as much as the top dog. Current number 1 is ‘mochalov13’ who is almost 200 points ahead of ‘JESUISYAAZY’. Although that may seem like a solid lead, it is less than 10% of their individual totals and easily attainable.

The last of the leaderboards, the Low Stakes which pays the top 100, also saw significant movement. The previous leader, ‘UFC@Poker’, fell to 4th while ‘duketoper’ sprinted to the top and has nearly a 400 point lead over 2nd (and almost 700 points over ‘UFC@Poker’), as everyone tries to claim the top reward of C$10,000.

The first Super High event since we looked last was event 90, the $10,300 Super MILLION$ High Roller which ran on May 14th. The tournament saw 228 players join the fray, creating a prize pool of $2,280,000, with $460,973.19 set aside for the overall winner. The final table took just over 2 hours to complete as Ognyan Dimov put on a clinic as he took down all of his opponents. If you want to watch the final table play out, you can here.

The other Super High event we are looking at is also a $10,300 Super MILLION$, which ran a week prior, on May 7th. This version of the tournament attracted 212 players creating a prize pool of $2,120,000. Taking 2.5 hours to complete, Ottomar Ladva took home the victory and earned $428,624.22 in the process.

Of the High tier events, the first was Event 47: $525 Bounty Hunters HR Main Event. This event which ran on May 7th, had a field of 3,261 players creating a prize pool of $1,630,500. It took just over 11 hours of play for the tournament to conclude with ‘JONY666’ taking top spot for $77,450.96 and an additional $63.791.88 in bounties.

The following week, on May 14th, the High Tier ran a $1,500,000 guaranteed event. Event 89-H: $525 Bounty Hunters HR Main Event attracted 3,498 players, creating a total prize pool of $1,749,000, well over the guarantee. At the end of the tournament, 10 hours 40 minutes later, ‘Kris_Petrova’ beat ‘J3GG’ for the top spot and $181,752.20 which included $98,673.18 in bounties.

May 7th also brought us Event 47-M: $54 Bounty Hunters Sunday Main Event. This Medium tier tournament offered a $600,000 guarantee which was smashed at 15,469 players entered the event, creating a total prize pool of $773,450. Taking almost 10.5 hours to complete, when the dust finally settled it was ‘ron999’ taking top spot and the biggest share of the prize pool, earning $28,671.31 plus $16,582.37 in bounties.

As expected the following week, on May 14, Event 89-M: $54 Bounty Hunters Sunday Main Event ran. This time 15,570 players came out for the event. The big winner of the biggest share of the $778,500 prize pool was ‘babybabybaby’ who earned $47,699.79 including $18,843.63 in bounties.

Finally, for the Low tier tournaments, the biggest events were the Sunday Hundred Grand. The May 7th edition, event 48, attracted 10,624 players to the $125,000 guaranteed tournament. When the event ended, it was ‘payplz’ earning $13,580.14 for top prize, after defeating Mikhayl Ulinsky who was consoled by the $10,178.65 runner-up prize.

The May 14th edition, Event 90-L: $15 Sunday Hundred Grand, had 10,422 players sign up for the tournament. It ran for just over 10.5 hours and ended with ‘VodKanockers’ taking down the event, earning $13,507.18.

As much as we would love to list all of the winners here, there is only so much space we have to work with, so if you want to see who won which event, you can check out all of the winners on PokerCraft in the GGPoker client. We still have over 2 weeks left and over one hundred events to play so everyone has a chance to earn a share and be a part of history with the biggest online tournament series ever. Hopefully we will see your name highlighted next week.

And if you have some time, don’t forget to check out the biggest events at each tier this weekend:

Sunday, May 21st 18:00 UTC Event 137-S: $10,300 Super MILLION$ HR $750,000 GTD
Sunday, May 21st 16:30 UTC Event 136-H: $525 Bounty Hunters HR Main Event $1.25M GTD
Sunday, May 21st 17:00 UTC Event 137-M: $150 GGMasters Festival Edition $1,500,000 GTD
Sat. May 20th 18:00 UTC Event 129-L: $25 Saturday Secret KO [Mystery Bounty] $225K GTD

From the Desk of the Wordsmith

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