Pavel Plesuv wins SCOOP warm-up for $177,964

After 502 entries swelled the prizepool to over a million dollars, the PokerStars SCOOP Event #73 ended on Monday evening with Pavel Plesuv the last man standing, making himself $177,964 richer in the process.

The $2,100-entry event saw just 37 players return to the virtual felt on Day 2, and it was Plesuv who went on the attack right away, racing up the leaderboard to threaten the overnight advantage held by ‘zivziv’. Day 1’s dominant player would eventually finish in 3rd place, but before that, play had to get to the final table.

In the early levels, zivziv’s lead only grew, as their stack of 3.6m chips more than doubled as they ran up a monster stack, but while players were falling regularly, just 16 players being left in seats by the end of the second break of the day, plenty of big names were still involved.

A pivotal hand for Plesuv that PokerNews reported on was a three-way all-in where he knocked out both Simon Ravnsbaek and Alex Difelice, but he then repeated the trick with a pre-flop all-in with pocket queens which held across a nine-high board to bust both Maksim Viktorovich (ace-ten) and ‘6omen6’ (ace-king), a hand that took Plesuv into the lead in a big way.

The final table should have been nine-handed, but two eliminations at the same time meant just eight sat down to win it all. When they did, Mustapha Kanit was first to depart the festivities, with his ace-jack crushed pre-flop by ‘stato_1’ and unable to overtake across five community cards.

Leaving in 7th place was Tyler Goatcher, who three-bet shoved with ace-queen and was called by the original raiser zivziv with king-eight of clubs. The king on the turn was the death knell for Goatcher and his departure precipitated a flurry of bust-outs.

One of the biggest names still in the hunt for the title at that stage was Stefan Schillhabel, but he was no more when he lost a coinflip against zivziv, Schillhabel’s pocket sixes ahead of zivziv’s ace-jack right up until the ace on the river.

Busting in 5th place for $55,302 was ‘NLZWERVERNL’, whose all-in from the cutoff with ace-seven again saw no luck in a race against zivziv, pocket fours doing the damage. While zivziv was the coinflip king, many of the pots were against short stacks, and that latest of three all-in hands that went their way only drew them level with Plesuv on 18 million chips.

That chipcount was more than double both the other remaining players, but while one would eventually get heads-up, the other would bust next. It was stato_1 who left the party in 4th place, all-in from the small blind with king-three, called and eliminated by -you’ve guessed it – zivziv in the big blind with ace-queen.

Again, despite that hand going their way, zivziv still had a lot of catching up to do with Plesuv’s stack clear out in front at that stage:

Pavel Plesuv: 33,031,999 chips

zivziv: 15,819,565 chips

XxJoaoFeraxX: 8,302,058 chips

While stacks went this way and that, by the end, they weren’t far off the numbers above, and zivziv it was who busted in 3^rd place for $99,206. All-in from the button with pocket threes, zivziv was called by Plesuv with pocket nines and they held to bust the overnight chip leader.

Heads-up, Plesuv had 43 million chips to XxJoaoFeraxX’s 7 million. Leading by a ratio of 6:1, it didn’t take long at all for Plesuv to see it out, as just four hands into the heads-up match, Plesuv limped with ace-eight then called the shove of his opponent when XxJoaoFeraxX shoved all-in with ace-four. An eight on the flop looked to have sealed the matter and Plesuv was champion by the turn of a ten, a meaningless three completing the board and pronouncing Plesuv as the winner.

One of poker’s finest, Plesuv has over $4.6 million in live tournament earnings and now has another big win at the online felt to hang his hat on. Congratulations to Moldovan SCOOP ‘Warm-Up’ winner Pavel Plesuv and all the players who made it into the money in what was another top-quality field and a final table that featured some of the world’s best poker players.

PokerStars SCOOP Event #73 Final Table Results: