Holiday Tournament Wrap-Up: Big Scores in the PokerStars Winter Series
The holiday season is over for another year. Bins are full of wrapping paper. Bellies are bursting with turkey, and some poker players’ bankroll received significant boosts thanks to the PokerStars Winter Series.
PokerStars’ Winter Series features 152 events, spread over low, medium and high buy-ins, with combined guarantees of $25 million. The first of the Winter Series events shuffled up and dealt on Christmas Day.
Despite it being Christmas Day, the first three Winter Series events were well-attended. Event #1 was the $109 NLHE Monday Million which attracted 11,392 players who created a $1,139,200 prize pool.
The tournament ended in a heads-up chop between the eventual champion “onebrl” of the Netherlands and Luxembourg's Dimitrios “JIM_BALLAS” Ballas. onebrl banked $119,122 while JIM_BALLAS secured a $116,720 payout.
A $1,050 buy-in event also took place on Christmas Day and saw 613 players take to the PokerStars virtual felt and they were all outlasted by Germany’s Artur “ARTSchGamble” Scerbak who added $106,212 to his Christmas stocking.
Rounding out the opening day of the series was a $530 no-limit hold’em six-max won by Bulgaria’s “tarantaleo” for $28,120.
The Series continued to run during that strange time between Christmas and New Year when people tend to forget what day it is due to being on annual leave and enjoying the festivities. Plenty of poker players decided to spend their time grinding the Winter Series, including Ivan “ivanvilchez8” Vilchez who won the $215 NLHE Mini Super Tuesday for $58,279 and a quartet of grinders who turned $2,100 into a big score in the high edition of the fourth event by striking a deal.
Tomas “MASUR0N1KE” Kubaliak bust in fourth place for $83,919 with “Biocid” falling in third place $86,243. Andreas “Daskalos20” Christoforou was the runner-up for $100,694 and “LadPark” of South Korea won a cool $107,054.
Some of the other highlights of the Winter Series so far include:
- ”pkrbt” - winner of Winter Series 06 - High: $2,100 PLO 6-Max for $59,993
- ”fred_volpe” - winner of Winter Series 07 - Low: $55 NLHE 8_max for $39,215
- Thomas ”WushuTM” Muhlocker - winner of Winter Series 07 - High: $5,200 NLHE 8-Max for $138,087
- Simon ”C. Darwin2” Mattsson - winner of Winter Series 10 - High: $1,050 NLHE Progressive for $136,575 including bounties
- "Tuczas” - winner of Winter Series 20 - High: $1,050 NLHE 6-Max Hyper Turbo for $69,237
The Winter Series ends on Jan. 7 with 12 events, including a trio of Main Events costing $22, $215 and $2,100 with combined guarantees of $3.25 million. Win your seat to the Main Events for a fraction of the cost via the many satellites running around the clock.
A handful of normal Sunday tournaments took place on Dec. 31 with several tournaments being moved to Jan. 1. Germany’s “GlitchSystem” took down the $215 Sunday Warm-Up for $11,946 with Kenny “SpaceyFCB” Hallaert winning the Bigger $215 for $7,951.
There was also a decent win for “Tom_Poker_NL” in the Big $109 worth $12,319 and India’s Raghav “Rossoneri23” Bansal turned $530 into a sizeable $43,750 (including bounty payments) by triumphing in the $530 Bounty Builder.
Wrapping up the PokerStars action is a mention for Ben “Ben86” Tollerene who came out on top of a 158-strong field in the Daily 500 to win $15,905.
Some Highlights from 888poker
There were dozens of tournaments at 888poker during the festive period, including the $50,000 Volcano won by UK-based Spaniard “MalakiasCF” worth a welcomed $16,342. This is a similar amount won by “GoFighTer” for taking down the $50,000 Mega Deep New Year’s Special; he banked $14,250.
Also at 888poker, there was a $50,000 Whale New Year’s Special. This was a $600 buy-in that attracted 89 players. The tournament ended in a heads-up chop between Steve “Kale333” van Zadelhoff who collected $17,908 and runner-up “InJeBakkes” who netted $16,138.
partypoker’s Biggest Christmas Results
partypoker swapped its usual Sunday schedule to Boxing Day. One of the biggest victories came in the $250,000 Gtd Title Fight which was won by “Tenebrus321” for $43,700. This impressive sum was bested by the $45,639 won by “Chelsea72” for taking down the $150,000 Gtd Super High Roller, a tournament that a trio of Team partypoker players reached the final table of. Patrick Leonard, Kristen Bicknell and Joao Simao finished sixth, fourth and third.
Two other players netted large scores. “TodayHave” won $23,875 by winning the $150,000 Main Event and Team partypoker’s Anatoly “NL_Profit” Filatov added $19,832 to his lifetime winnings by triumphing in the $100,000 Gtd High Roller.
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