Addamo and Filatov Fall Short in Super MILLION$ Thriller

This week’s GGPoker Super MILLION$ finale saw drama from the first card to the last. With the record-holding Super MILLION$ winner falling just short of creating history, a Brazilian former world number one being denied and a Russian pro falling at the final fence, it was a frantic race to the conclusion of this week’s $10,300-entry elite poker showdown.

Dzivielevski Suffers Early Exit

With just nine players making it to the final table, the chip leader heading into the final table was the Australian poker crusher, Michael Addamo. To anyone who is uninitiated in the history of this tournament series, Addamo has won it five times before, but as anyone who has been watching the weekly shows in the past month or so knows, the chip leaders have not had it all their own way in recent times.

Roman Hrabec surprised the chip leader a fortnight ago and Aleks Ponakovs learned that the overnight chip lead meant nothing seven days ago so Addamo cannot be too surprised that it did not work out as the chip leader’s curse went on. The first player out, however, was the short-stacked Argentina-based player ‘Be Myself’, whose 10 big blind stack didn’t last long, ace-nine losing to ‘the Robbi’, a.k.a. jack-four as Canadian ‘LJoseph62’ scored a knockout after a jack on the flop reduced the field to eight with the Argentinian out with a score worth $40,290.

It was the Brazilian online phenom Yuri Dzivelevski who went next as the final table, which took a total of two hours to complete, continued at race pace. The former world number one cashed for $51,590 in eighth place when his three-bet shove with ace-jack ran into Muehloecker’s ace-king, which held to send Dzivielevski to the rail.

Reixach Hits the Rail

Hong Kong-based Biao Ding started the day with 32 big blinds but ended it on the rail in seventh place for $66,060. That was because he failed to improve on last week’s runner-up result when LJoseph62’s shove with king-jack beat Ding’s pocket tens after a jack on the turn sent play six-handed.

Out in fifth was the Lithuanian player Deividas Daubaris. Playing from Mexico, Daubaris move all-in with ace-jack, but couldn’t hit with ace-jack against the Russian player Anatoly Filatov. Playing from Turkey, Filatov’s pocket pair held and he headed for the top of the leaderboard at his fellow Eastern European’s expense, Daubaris making $84,588.

Out in fifth place was the Spanish high roller Sergi Reixach. All-in with ace-three, he lost to LJoseph6’s queen-five, all the money going in after two fives on turn and river skittled the Spanish player. Reixach cashed for $108,314 but missed out on the top four despite cashing for the first six-figure score of the evening.

Addamo Falls Short

With four players left, all eyes were on Michael Addamo, but while the Australian was just three places from glory and a record sixth Super MILLION$ title, he could get no closer. The Australian, who kicked off the final table with 101 big blinds, a long way clear of his nearest rival LJoseph62 with 59 bigs, saw that opponent end his chances as his eight-six of spades was shot down by the Canadian’s ace-nine after all the money went in on a 9-9-2-5-8 board, with the river pair seeing Addamo push and his opponent send him home with $138,694.

LJoseph62 had denied Addamo his sixth Super MILLION$ title and was about to block Filatov and Muehloecker’s paths to added glory too. The latter was denied a second title when he lost with sixes to LJoseph62’s pocket aces, before queen-three was no good with a short stack, the Austrian falling to the same opponent’s ace-queen. Muehloecker left with a third-place prize of $177,594.

Heads-up saw Anatoly Filatov battling from the short stack, and extremely short he eas, with just 10% of his opponent’s pile of chips. It was all over quickly when Filatov’s king-three was good enough to bluff catching a flush with on a board of Q-J-4-9-7, but LJoseph62 had queen-seven for two pair and called it off to become champion. Filatov left with a runner-up score of $227,406 as he fell just short of winning his third Super MILLION$ title, but it was a maiden victory for the Canadian player who took the top prize of $291,188.