The PokerStars 17th Anniversary Sunday Million concluded Tuesday, March 28 as Ricardo “RFN1986” Nagamoto bested 25,721 opponents to claim the $1 million top prize. A player by the screen name of “roflcopter88” finished in the runner-up spot for over $723,000.
In all, there were 39,500 entries in the $215 tournament, 25,722 unique players and 13,778 re-entries. Each player was allowed up to five re-entries until registration closed. It appears that both of the top two players took advantage of that rule and re-entered twice.
The tournament began on March 26 and when action ended on Sunday, there was still an overlay, as PokerStars had guaranteed a prize pool of $7.5 million. Fortunately for Stars, plenty of players registered or re-entered by the start of Monday’s Day 2 to bring the prize pool comfortably over the guarantee: $7.9 million.
The top 5,927 places were paid, with a min-cash of $373.29. Second through seventh all made six-figures.
Despite the five-digit turnout and nearly $8 million prize pool, this was the smallest PokerStars Sunday Million Anniversary event since the 6th anniversary in 2012. That one drew 33,732 entries and built a $6.7 million prize pool. Eight players chopped at the final table, leaving $120,000 extra for the winner. “slyfox151” won the tournament, but “HesBluffingx” won the most money, $552,973.
Nagamoto got to heads-up against roflcopter88 by eliminating “PAX176” in third place. From the small blind, Nagamoto just limped pre-flop to disguise his pocket Aces. To his joy, PAX176 moved all-in for over 48 million chips with A-J and that was that.
Going into heads-up play, Nagamoto was in a substantial hole, trailing roflcopter88 151,820,034 chips to 638,179,966. A key hand in his comeback saw Nagamoto turn a set of Twos on a Ten-high board when roflcopter88 flopped top pair.
With blinds at 4 million/8 million and a 1 million-chip ante, Nagamoto ended it. roflcopter88 min-raised pre-flop holding A-9 and Nagamoto three-bet all the way to 56 million with pocket Queens. That prompted roflcopter88 to shove for nearly 205 million and Nagamoto made the call. No Ace was to be found and Nagamoto clinched the victory.
PokerStars 17th Anniversary Sunday Million – Final Table Results
- Ricardo “RFN1986” Nagamoto – $1,000,000
- roflcopter88 – $723,474
- PAX176 – $519,001
- songoks – $372,317
- Vlad “dariepoker” Darie – $267,090
- atredezini – $191,603
- Paulo “paulinhoo00” Brombin – $137,450
- Suferring102 – $98,603
- Manuel “young_diam18” Blaschke – $70,734
