Chidwick, Sammartino and Foxen all go close to Super MILLION$ victory

The latest GGPoker Super MILLION$ online event had its usual mix of some of the best players in the world battling it out for what represents an eye-watering top prize to many.

Taking the runner-up spot was Britain’s most successful lie tournament player in history, Stephen Chidwick. The masterful Chidwick is, of course, known for his incredible ability to live-read some of the best in the business, as he proved at the Triton Million in London last year with this phenomenal call:

There was no chance for that at the online felt, of course, but while Chidwick would ultimately miss out on the top prize, he did finish as runner-up in the 137-entry field, which saw just nine players make last night’s final table.

With the final table kicking off, each player was in line to receive profit on their $10,300 buy-in. Gone are the days of the Super Tuesday being the tournament they all want to win, with the Super MILLION$ more than providing the same excitement with a much higher buy-in regularly being coughed up by the great and good.

It was the Brazilian player Rica Copag who was the first player to bust at the final table, losing their stack to the 2019 World Series of Poker Main Event runner-up Dario Sammartino. The Italian opened with pocket aces and had the easiest call in the game when Copag – incidentally the name of a world-famous maker of playing cards – moved all-in from the next seat with pocket jacks. No jacks came, and indeed Sammartino flopped a set of aces to end Copag’s night in 9th place for $40,792. 

Niklas Astedt was the next to go, moving 10 big blinds into the middle with pocket threes, but running into Alex Foxen’s pocket tens, which held. In 7th place, it was the turn of Belarussian ‘winnerwsop’ to bust, before Moroccan player Idris Ambraisse bit the dust in 6th.

It was Alex Foxen who busted in 5th place for the first six-figure score of the tournament, cashing for $118,529 when pocket sevens couldn’t survive against ‘blakjak19’, whose king-four hit a king on the flop.

With Mexico-based ‘V@der’ busting in 4th place for $154,752 when their ace-eight couldn’t catch Chidwick’s queens, the field was reduced to just three players, and it would be Sammartino who missed out on the heads-up battle when his all-in move with pocket sixes bought a call from Chidwick, who held pocket kings. Those won’t have been a welcome sight to Sammartino, especially given that was the hand that ended his chances of becoming the world champion when Hossein Ensan beat him to that honour 15 months ago. 

Chidwick had won a vital hand, but still went into the heads-up with the shorter stack and it would cost him, ultimately. With 44 big blinds, Chidwick raised it up with the suited 6-4 in spades. That ‘blakjak19’ could call with ace-jack wasn’t a surprise, but the flop giving Chidwick a straight was. All the chips were in the middle post-flop, but ‘blakjak19’ still had a draw, with the jack of diamonds and all three cards on the flop being diamonds, had two cards to flush his way to victory.

That didn’t happen on the turn, which was the very definition of what you might christen a ‘brick’, the deuce of spades. But a diamond on the river ended the event and consigned Chidwick to the runner-up position rather than the win.

GGPoker Super MILLIONS Final Table – October 13th, 2020: