The partypoker US Network Online Series Event #14: $20,000 GTD NLH exceeded its guaranteed prize pool Friday night, drawing 104 entries for a prize pool of $20,800. Of those 104 entries, ”bigcakes1” was the one to come out on top, claiming the first-place prize of $5,928.

Unlimited re-entries piled up over the course of the three-plus hour late registration period, as increasing blinds and overwhelming all-in action led to numerous chip fluctuations. When the dust settled and registration closed, three tables remained, and that number dropped to two when 18 players remained at the break that followed shortly thereafter.

At that time, eventual tenth-place finisher MatchupProof was the chip leader, while “bigcakes1” was near the bottom of the counts. “bigcakes1” found a double after hitting a flush on the river against ”JerseyShore”, who would eventually bubble the tournament in 13th place, and while on the bubble, “bigcakes1” took a huge pot from “MatchupProof” to overtake the chip lead.

It took less than two minutes from the time the bubble burst before three eliminations occurred to reach the final table, and players dropped from there almost just as quickly until three-handed play saw a brief break in the action as eventual runner-up “Hanadog9” pulled ahead, eventually amassing two-thirds of the chips in play by the time heads-up play began.

Momentum remained in "Hanadog9's" favor to start the heads-up match, taking their chip lead to more than a four-to-one ratio. Then the tables turned: “bigcakes1” found a double and followed it up with another sizeable pot that they won after shoving all in over a turn bet from “Hanadog9.” Another double soon followed, and “bigcakes1” all of a sudden had a four-to-one chip lead of their own.

A few hands later, “bigcakes1” made two pair on the river and called a shove from “Hanadog9” with what proved to be the best hand, putting the exclamation mark on the roller coaster of a match to earn the victory.

Event #8 Final Table Results