With the MILLIONS UK festival drawing big numbers for all of its events, the final High Roller of the series saw a stacked final table produce some of the best play of the series and crown a winner in Joao Vieira.
With 95 entries, there was over $800,000 to be won at the final table alone as the final eight players gathered to showdown for the title. In the end, a highly dominant performance from Joao Vieira saw the Portuguese pro stack off virtually all of his competition and capture the trophy after beating the in-form Australian player Kahle Burns heads-up.
With the final day beginning with 17 players, not all of them would make the money, only 13 lucky players reaching that promised land. Those didn’t include the four unfortunates who made the final day for no reward, and the first player of those to head for the car park was the most successful tournament player in Dutch history and long-time partypoker player, Marcel Luske.
When Daniel Rezaei busted next, he was followed in quick succession by two players on the bubble-bursting hand. Bruno Fitoussi and Tibor Nagygyorgy both exited at the same time to give everyone else remaining in the field return on their investment and the impetus to fly forward in attack as they went for the win.
With the in-the-money eliminations of Sirzat Hissou and partypoker Team Pro Kristen Bicknell, play reached the final table when John Duthie, the partypoker President, was eliminated after trying to bluff Vieira, who called to leave Duthie dead to a club, which didn’t arrive on the river.
Under the lights at the final table, Anatoly Filatov was another partypoker name to leave the tournament when he moved all-in with seven-eight and Vieira’s dominating ace-seven got the job done.
Eight in their seats, photographs were taken and play immediately resumed with a race to the really big money. Fahad Althani busted in 8th place and Michal Sklenicka exited in 7th as both men fell victim to Igor Kurganov, another consistent performer across the week, having already finished as runner-up to Kahle Burns in the Super High Roller event that saw the Australian bank $350,000.
Burns would get the better of Kurganov again as the former picked up pocket aces with Kurganov holding kings. Kurganov raised, Burns called and as Joao Vieira picked up a squeeze play with pocket queens, there was the chance of a sensational play out. When Kurganov shoved and Burns called, however, Vieira made what would turn out to be a very, very useful fold in the grand scheme of things.
Kurganov couldn’t find a king to maintain his race for the crown, and Joao Simao went the same way when his ace-four was called and dominated to death by GPI Player of the Year Alex Foxen’s ace-jack.
It was a long time later that Finnish player Joni Jouhkimainen found himself short-stacked, the partypoker Team Pro shoving all-in with ace-jack, called for his tournament life by Vieira’s pocket three. Jouhkimainen couldn’t hit and like that, it was down to three.
In the same orbit, play moved heads-up, as after waiting four hours for one player to bust, the rail had just two men to cheer on. Alex Foxen was all-in with a premium hand, but his ace-queen was up against Vieira’s pocket queens, and no spike would burst the tyres of Vieira’s runaway bandwagon.
With a 2:1 chip lead, Vieira went on the attack and Kahle Burns could do nothing to recover the lead. When Burns found ace-deuce, he moved all-in over the call from Vieira. The Portuguese had trapped with pocket jacks, however, and called it off to ride out a board that held a deuce on the flop but a jack too. Burns could find no help on the turn and he was out, delivered to another six-figure prize but this time no title.
For Vieira, it was the perfect end to a great tournament and a huge final table with some of the biggest prizes awarded in 2020 so far saw big names get off to a great start in the New Year in Nottingham.
MILLIONS UK High Roller final table results:
| Place | Player | Prize | Prize |
| 1st | Joao Vieira | Portugal | $250,000 |
| 2nd | Kahle Burns | Australia | $165,000 |
| 3rd | Alex Foxen | United States | $115,000 |
| 4th | Joni Jouhkimainen | Finland | $90,000 |
| 5th | Joao Simao | Brazil | $70,000 |
| 6th | Igor Kurganov | Russia | $55,000 |
| 7th | Michael Sklenicka | Czech Republic | $45,000 |
| 8th | Fahad Althani | United Kingdom | $35,000 |
