XL Blizzard #32 - $1,000,000 Main Event

At 7 p.m. GMT, the Main Event of the 2018 888poker XL Blizzard started. The massive $1,050 buy-in event had late registration open for five extra hours. At the end of registration, there were 730 players and 272 rebuys to create a total prize pool of $1,002,000, hitting the guarantee. For the winner, it would be a massive payday of $183,867!

888poker Ambassador Parker "888tonkaaaa" Talbot busted two spots away from the money

Familiar faces like Jon "chut_up" Van Fleet, Ben "jenbizzIe" Jones, Fabricio "DrMiKee" Gonzalez, Steven "Kale333" van Zadelhoff, Jans "Graftekkel" Arends, Sofia "sofialovgren" Lovgren and Artem "veeea" Vezhenkov busted pretty quickly; all went out well before the money.

Dominik "888Dominik" Nitsche, Anton "anteen" Bertilsson, Adrian "ADRI_ATM" Mateos, Ole "olekonjole" Schemion, Niklas "tutten7"Astedt, and 888poker Ambassadors Chris "888Moorman" Moorman and Martin "MJacobson888" Jacobson also played but didn't manage to reach the stage of the tournament where money was rewarded.

888poker Ambassador Parker "888tonkaaaa" Talbot busted two spots away from the money after losing with ace-jack against pocket eights. The bubble burst when "chazcombes" lost all his or her chips and ended in 100th place.

After reaching the money, familiar faces like Nicolas "PKaiser" Fierro, Simon "Isildur1337x" Mattsson and Anton "B.Mitchell" Wigg busted.

The final table was reached after "joelwilford" finished in 11th place and was followed by "GritinhO_Dzi" in 10th place.

On the final table, it took a while before "TAPIS_TAPIR" was the first casualty finishing in ninth place for $13,026. With eight players remaining, a brutal beat ended the tournament of "proplatish." "proplatish"'s stack ended up in the middle with kings against the jack-eight of "Vienas2", who was putting pressure on the Russian with two very short players on the table. The flop gave "Vienas2"
a gutshot but it was the running eight-jack on the turn and river that ended things for "proplatish" in eighth place for $22,044.

"Vienas2" was lucky again a few hands later, eliminating "Spowi07" in seventh place when cracking pocket jacks with jack-six. "eight0808", who was the short stack for a while, couldn't make a comeback and finished in sixth place for $42,084.

In the final hand, ace-king won the crucial coin flip against pocket fours.

Not much later, in a blind versus blind battle, "Kamphu94" ended up all in with ace-eight against the ace-queen of "Vienas2". The latter mentioned saw the best hand win, eliminating the German in fifth place for $52,104.

Flopping top pair against the chip leader was looking promising for "dr.hAni," but after they got their chips in the middle, the German was drawing dead soon enough. "Pepepepepe." turned a set of eights and eliminated his or her opponent in fourth place for $74,649.

Just a few hands after the eliminating of the German player, "wellyxx" ended in third place for $99,198.

After fifteen minutes of heads-up play, Argentina's "Pepepepepe." was able to finish the job. In the final hand, ace-king won the crucial coin flip against pocket fours. "Vienas2" ended in second place for $131,262 while Argentina's "Pepepepepe." won the first-place prize of $183,867 and the XL Blizzard Main Event title!

XL Blizzard #31 - $150,000 Mega Deep

The $150,000 Mega Deep attracted a field of just over a thousand players, all ponying up the $215 buy in. That made for a prize pool of just over $200,000 with $37,811 reserved for the winner.

"TooMuckRake" was the one to walk away with that amount after beating "Binkasaurus" heads up. Besides three players from the United Kingdom, all players at the final table of eight came from different countries, making it an international final table.

XL Blizzard #34 - $50,000 Micro Main Event

The Micro Main Event had a buy-in of just $30 and a massive 2,632 players entered. That made for a combined prize pool of $72,380 with just over $11,000 set apart for the winner.

"jobrazeau" from Canada walked away with that prize, getting his or her buy-in back times 381. "dnvz23" from Germany had to settle for $8,584, still a hefty prize for such a small buy-in tournament.

The 888poker XL Blizzard is now in the books. In May, 888poker is back with the XL Inferno while the XL Eclipse is scheduled for September. Expect live reporting of the biggest events and recaps of all the events, right here on PokerNews.com.