During the past night, the eyes of poker fans from all over the world focused primarily on one destination - the Bahamas. The PCA stop there culminated with a spectacular PSPC event, in which, after four demanding days of play, the last six players remained in the fight for a unique trophy and millions of dollars.
Argentinian Nacho Barbero entered the final table from the position of a chip leader, who, due to his career achievements, was also considered favorite. However, it was broken right in the beginning yesterday, when it started a relatively inconspicuous game during level 31 by opening to 500k by Shylko with J J . Barbero talked to his rail, missed the open, and SB-raised to 5,125,000 with 9 3 to put Menzel's short on the BB under pressure. But he folded, to which Shylko sent a full one for 12 m. Sad Barbero folded, but who knows, maybe thanks to this hand he didn't reach for the trophy.
The qualifier Niclas Thumm from Germany became the first eliminated of this table. He started the final table from the tail of the leaderboard with only 7bb, which he managed to double in the first hand of the evening. Even so, a little later he was the one who heard the seat-open, when his open shove for 15bb with A 2 was called by Barbero with K Q. Two kings on the board spelled the end for the Platinum Pass winner, who turned it into a lifetime $1,001,200.
Fifth place with a prize of $1,251,500 went to Portugal's Pedro Marquez, who rolled his 14bb with A K against Pizzari's A 6 . Everything looked great until the river, on which the nasty 6 rang, sending Marquez home in an ugly way.
But the title of the unluckiest player of the evening clearly went to Barbero, with whom things went downhill after the aforementioned missclick. The flop 5 2 3 gave him the proverbial dot behind the whole trouble, where BvB got with Pizzari. An all-in and a call brought a showdown in which Barbero's top pair of 8 5 was less than Pizzari's 5 3 , and since neither the turn nor the river helped, it was fourth place for $1,551,300.
After this moment, the remaining trio of players got into a debate about the ICM deal, which quickly became common ground. The result was a playoff for the title, trophy and $100,000, the rest of the prizepool was redistributed as follows:
- Aliaksandr Shylko (26,100,000) – 2,921,838$
- Max Menzel (20,600,000) – 2,759,990$
- Philipe Pizzari (14,150,000) – 2,524,871$
The subsequent fast finish first awarded the bronze to Philip Pizzari, who spun for his tournament life with J 7 against Menzel's K Q . Even though the flop brought two hearts, the miracle didn't happen in the end and the tournament moved to the final heads-up. Shylko went into it with a 2:1 advantage, and he was able to use this advantage immediately.
In the very first hand of heads-up, Shylko limped T 5 , which Menzel only checked with J 9 . Sick runout gradually brought 8 5 5 T Q to the table, which hit both players perfectly. Menzel decided to check with a hit procedure, to which Shylko bet him 4.5m. Qualifier Menzel sent all 13m, but he got a snap and it was decided.
The story of the victory of the qualifier, as it was in the case of Ramon Colillas, was not repeated, but Menzel really missed it by only little. Either way, the name that will go down in history belongs to 26-year-old Belarusian Aliaksandr Shylko, who took home the glory, the trophy and $3,121,838!
But Sam Greenwood, who took home the gold trophy from the $250k Super High Roller, was able to surpass this beautiful result in terms of money. It attended by a total of 39 players, who thus produced a prize pool of $9,498,060. The largest chunk of it, namely $3,276,760, went to Greenwood's poker account, thanks to which he increased his lifetime winnings to over $26 million.
You probably still remember that during the first week of the PCA, a lot of trophies were handed out, the very first of which went to Isaac Haxton. Well, it was Ike who also won the final tournament, which was the $100k High Roller. In it, 34 players took care of 46 entries and thus a $4,508,460 prize pool, from which two millionaires emerged. Runner-up Fedor Holz took home $1,014,400, and Ike added another beautiful $1,555,360 to his account.
Source: PokerNews, PSlive, Twitter
