Dario Sammartino, the 2019 WSOP Main Event runner-up, comes into play at the final table of the latest Super MILLION$ event on GGPoker with the chip lead.
Italy’s Sammartino hit the headlines back in 2019 when he came into the action at the WSOP Main Event final table 7th in chips of the nine players, but he confounded many people’s expectations to get all the way to the heads-up before losing to the eventual champion Hossein Ensan.
Back then, Sammartino would be disappointed to miss out on the title, as you can see in this PokerNews video from the time.
Poker has, of course, changed radically in the 18 months since that achievement. That is largely due to the Coronavirus outbreak that has seen either no WSOP Main Event champions or two WSOP Main Event champions crowned since that day depending on your opinion. Much of poker is online now and the vast majority of poker players have grown accustomed to depositing five or six-figure sums (or seven if you’re Daniel Negreanu) in order to pursue greatness at the online felt.
The latest tournament in which to do that is this week’s $10,300-entry GGPoker Super MILLION$ event, the 32nd iteration of this tournament and with Sammartino leading, the chip leader will be looking to seal his first Super MILLION$ title. The Italian has made the final table twice before but hasn’t managed to win one yet – so could tonight be his night?
Sammartino finished 3rd back in October for a career-high Super MILLION$ result of $202,045, but can he go two places further and claim this week’s top prize of $454,907? While he has the chip lead with 4,377,484 chips, plenty of talented players lie in his wake.
One of those is the Canadian player Ami Barer, who has 3,132,590 chips and has participated in every single one of the 32 Super MILLION$ events that have taken place to date – a phenomenal record. Barer shares one unenviable record with Sammartino in that both men have never finished higher than 3rd in the Super MILLION$, but it will be a shock if neither man breaks their duck in that regard tonight.
One man who knows exactly how to close this tournament out is Isaac Baron, who will be looking to repeat winning this event four months ago, way back on September 13th last year. Baron comes into play with 2,199,601 chips, marginally more than another man who has experience of winning this event, Kyle Menard. The Canadian has over 2.1 million chips too, and will start hoping to put around 35 big blinds to good use once more.
With other regulars in Super MILLION$ events such as Irish player ‘Pluto The Doggo’ (2 million), Germany’s Pascal Hartmann (1.5 million) and Cypriot player Aliaksei Boika (824,457), there’s all to play for as play kicks off at 6pm GMT.
Super MILLION$ Final Table January 18th, 2021 Chipcounts:
| Position | Player | Country | Chips |
| 1st | Dario Sammartino | Italy | 4,377,484 |
| 2nd | ‘OnTheFlow’ | Argentina | 3,165,052 |
| 3rd | Ami Barer | Canada | 3,132,590 |
| 4th | ‘RRomoshka’ | Russia | 3,091,338 |
| 5th | Isaac Baron | U.S.A. | 2,199,601 |
| 6th | Kyle Menard | Canada | 2,119,710 |
| 7th | ‘Pluto The Doggo’ | Ireland | 2,045,582 |
| 8th | Pascal Hartmann | Germany | 1,544,186 |
| 9th | Aliaksei Boika | Cyprus | 824,457 |
