It was Sunday again, a day that online poker players look forward to all week long. The early parts of the day might consist of spending time with family or watching football, but the afternoons are meant for PokerStars tournaments. And one that is on the must-play list of most poker enthusiasts is the Sunday Million with its $1.5 million guaranteed prize pool.

A total of 7,307 players joined in by winning their entries through the numerous satellites available or ponying up the $215 buy-in to compete for their share of the substantial prize pool. When all was calculated, there was an overlay and the payout schedule was complete. The final 1,080 players standing would be paid, and the first prize was set at $184,500.

Play began at its usual quick pace, and half the field had been eliminated only two hours into the tournament. And as the action continued, the bubble approached as play hit the three and a half hour mark. Finally, after a bit of hand-for-hand action, Jovial Gent was the 1081st finisher and the bubble player, making way for the remainder of the field to do a little happy dance in front of their computers. bjolla was the first player eliminated in the money and took away $300 for that distinction.

The bustouts then took on a whole new meaning of fast and furious. About 40 players were eliminated in the first three minutes after the money bubble burst, and about 80 were gone within five minutes of that mark. Though play slowed somewhat, the field had still been reduced to 100 players only six and a half hours into the event.

Just over eight hours after the tournament began, the final 18 players took their seats at the last two tables standing, and the action took on the pace of a snail…or of a few very deliberate poker players. But when it finally seemed to quicken, it turned out that only one half hour had elapsed until the final table was reached. GeoffRas22 put all 2,713,443 chips into the pot with As-Ks, but Br0ke24/7 called with pocket queens. The showdown brought nothing on the board to help the short stack, and GeoffRas22 was out in 10th place with $7,500 and the position of final table bubble player.

The final table began in level 32 with blinds at 100,000/200,000, a 20,000 ante, and the following chip counts:

Seat 1: BOKINHA (11027452 in chips)
Seat 2: DeuceBuster (4059150 in chips)
Seat 3: trangers15 (9872014 in chips)
Seat 4: Y2JKID (3877876 in chips)
Seat 5: princio (6606879 in chips)
Seat 6: Br0ke24/7 (6377874 in chips)
Seat 7: Jazz604 (3235053 in chips)
Seat 8: govshark2 (19040496 in chips)
Seat 9: MyGambit (8973206 in chips)

By the first break of the final table, Jazz604 had lost ground and went from short stack to ultra short stack. MyGambit had climbed into second, but govshark2 had increased his chip lead to 2/1 over MyGambit.

Jazz604 finally made a move as his stack was reduced to only 895,053. With Ah-6h versus the pocket fours of govshark2, an ace came on the flop to allow Jazz604 to more than double up. Soon after, another large pot was brewing in which trangers15 was all-in with pocket jacks against the pocket kings of MyGambit. After a jack came on the flop, trangers15 was able to grab the pot worth more than 17 million.

Jazz604 needed to make another move and did so preflop with Ac-Js for his last 1,660,106. DeuceBuster reraised all-in to isolate, and with no other callers turned over Ah-Qc. The board came down Th-Ad-Tc-3h-5c, and the tournament was over for Jazz604, who left in ninth place with $10,500 for the effort.

MyGambit had been suffering since losing the aforementioned substantial pot to trangers15. With less than six million in chips remaining, MyGambit moved all-in preflop with Ah-Jh, but govshark2 called with pocket sevens. The board brought nothing for the all-in player when it came 8d-Qs-8c-6d-5h, and MyGambit was forced out in eighth place with a $17,250 prize.

Y2JKID had been short-stacked for some time and decided to push it preflop in the small blind with just over two million chips. princio called from the big blind with As-Jd, which dominated the Kd-Qh of Y2JKID. The virtual dealer flipped over Kc-Jh-6s-Ad-9c, and Y2JKID was eliminated in seventh place for a $26,250 consolation prize.

Double-ups were in order for several players, and their wishes were granted. Br0ke24/7 doubled through BOKINHA when his sevens cracked the eights of BOKINHA with a rivered straight. DeuceBuster then won with his pocket eights over the A-Q of princio.

BOKINHA wasn’t able to recover from doubling up an opponent earlier, and with just over two million in chips, he pushed all-in preflop. princio called with Ah-Ks, and BOKINHA showed the dominated Ac-5c. The board came down 8h-8s-3d-Th-Qh, and princio took it down with the better kickers. BOKINHA was relegated to the virtual rail in sixth place with a $39,000 payout.

govshark2 continued to bully the table with his chip lead. And when DeuceBuster chose to push his 2,138,512 short stack into the pot preflop, govshark2 didn’t hesitate long in calling with Ac-5d. DeuceBuster showed Ad-7d, which was far ahead of the Ac-5d of govshark2. It looked like the short stack would double through…until the river. The board came down with 2h-6s-Th-As-5h, and that five gave govshark2 the two pair needed to win. DeuceBuster was out in fifth place with a $54,000 payday.

Next up was the other short stack. Br0ke24/7 moved the stack of less than three million all-in with Kh-2h, but govshark2 called with a dominating Kc-9d. The cards ran out 7d-Kd-Ac-8d-Td, and it was all over for Br0ke24/7 in fourth place, though broke no more with an extra $69,000 in his PokerStars account.

While princio crept into the chip lead for a short time, just after the tenth hour break, he lost a significant amount of those chips to trangers15. The latter had been making a run by doubling through govshark2 before the break, then doubling through princio after. Though govshark2 quickly regained his chip lead, it was clearly going to be anyone’s game but govshark2 had every intention of dominating it. And with no talk of a deal from anyone, the determined threesome was going to play it out.

trangers15 had lost a great deal of ground and finally moved his last 9,786,300 all-in from the small blind after an initial raise by govshark2. govshark2 called with pocket kings, and trangers15 was in deep trouble with only pocket deuces. The board came Qs-5h-8d-6s-Ad, and it was just that simple. trangers15 was out in third place with $84,000 for his troubles.

Heads-up action began with princio and his 13,441,756 chips trailing govshark2’s 59,628,244 stack by quite a bit. With blinds at 300,000/600,000, it was going to be a tough road for princio. However, the short stack gave it his all and slowly chipped his way up to more than twenty million. In an attempt to double his stack, princio got aggressive. From the small blind, princio raised it up to four million, but govshark2 came over the top of that to make it 10,400,000. princio took it one step further with an all-in move for just over 20 million total with Ks-Td, and govshark2 called and showed Ah-Kh. The flop came 5s-Qd-Kd, and hope was thinning. The 6h on the turn and 4s on the river sealed the deal, and princio was eliminated from the tournament in second place with a $124,950 prize.

govshark2 swam his way to the top of the leaderboard and did everything he could to stay there. With only a slight falter, he came back to win the Sunday Million, which was good for a total of $184,500 in prize money and the title of Sunday Million champion.

Sunday Million Results for 10/12/08:

1st place: govshark2 ($184,500)
2nd place: princio ($124,950)
3rd place: trangers15 ($84,000)
4th place: Br0ke24/7 ($69,000)
5th place: DeuceBuster ($54,000)
6th place: BOKINHA ($39,000)
7th place: Y2JKID ($26,250)
8th place: MyGambit ($17,250)
9th place: Jazz604 ($10,500)

No, its not the Sunday Million wrap up’s early edition as that will be coming your way a little later on tonight. For the early birds, the Sunday Warm-up provides the big MTT experience for most players without having to explain to your boss why there’s a keyboard imprint on the side of your face when that double espresso doesn’t quite kick in.

3,617 players checked-in for the Sunday Warm-Up tonight and PokerStars provided the extra bread as the guaranteed prize pool of $750,000 would be up for grabs as bot432931 (with an 8th place finish in the Warm-Up last December, click here for the report) took the chip lead into the last break with 17 players left.

mement_mori and pokerMJ were also in the mix with 16 players left and had a little history as the two battled it out on the August Turbo Takedown final table taking 2nd and 4th respectively. Check out their final table battle here. mement_mori would check out in 14th place in a big five million chip pot for ael1979 who held Ad-Kd to mement_mori’s Ac-Qc and the board running out to no avail for mement_mori. pokerMJ would also run into the buzzsaw known is ael1979 (who has won the Warm-up twice last year for a total of $180,000 in winnings) as he picked up Aces twice within three hands to knock out ScaryGrant and pokerMJ to amass a huge 12 million chip stack.

Also checking in once again looking for a big cash was December 2nd Sunday Million runner-up (read here for the final table wrap up) WestMenlo92 who snagged $97,710.92 but would need to take the first prize of $101,250 tonight to eclipse that cash.

Here’s the how the final table formed up:

Seat 1: IBLUFFULOL (2790106 in chips)
Seat 2: mozitas (4409391 in chips)
Seat 3: ael1979 (14496801 in chips)
Seat 4: wdrzich (1760704 in chips)
Seat 5: bot432931 (3050676 in chips)
Seat 6: Puniponken (2988578 in chips)
Seat 7: wildman22222 (1479562 in chips)
Seat 8: Pokky Star (2574189 in chips)
Seat 9: Pappe_Ruk (2619993 in chips)

As stated above ael1979 received the cards coming into the final table and started off with a sizable chip lead over the table, nearly four times as many as second place mozitas.

Bluffing works every time in NLHE except the last time, as IBLUFFULOL open-shoved his 1,925,106 chips into the middle preflop after it was folded around to his small blind. But, mozitas was sitting on nearly five million chips in the big blind and As-Qd was plenty to call the shove creating a 4,230,212 chip pot. IBLUFFULOL wasn’t laughing being dominated while holding Ad-4h as the board ran out 2d-3c-2s-Jc-9s as IBLUFFULOL earned $6,750.00 in ninth place.

bot432931’s finish in eighth place could only be described in one word: “dirty”

Happily calling the small blind open-shove of wdrzich (who covered by 334,028) while holding pocket rockets (Ad-As) and being well ahead of wdrzich who’s held the blackjack hand of 3c-8s. wdrzich wasn’t looking for face cards but rather some sort of two pair or trips. The flop came Jh-8h-7s, hitting the first leg of the mountain climb for wdrzich, the Jc on the turn though negated the three treys as outs, but the river 8d sent wdrizch over the peak of the mountain with eights full of jacks and sent bot432931’s cracked aces home in eighth place for $9,750.00.

Just five hands later Puniponken opened a pot UTG+2 for 490,000 with the blinds at 100,000/200,000 ante 20,000 folding around to mozitas in the small blind who re-popped it to 1.4 million. Puniponken decided to take a stand by four-betting all-in which mozitas called leaving 3,874,373 behind creating a 6.4 million chip pot.

mozitas: As-Qh
Puniponken: Ac-Kd

Flop of 5d-7h-9s provided nothing to note, but the Qs on the turn flipped the domination in the direction of mozitas. A 9d on the river and Puni’s big slick wasn’t so big any longer as mozitas’ pair of queens sent Puniponken home in seventh place with a rather large $15,750.00 score.

Shortly after the break PokkyStar and ael1979 got tangled in an all-in preflop 10 million chip pot which was shipped to PokkyStar as his pocket kings (Ks-Kc) held up over ael1979’s Ac-Qs and three players now held 10 million in chips (Pokky Star, mozitas, ael1979).

The very next hand however would be the last for the short stacked Pappe_Ruk. Open shoving UTG for 658,993 with the blinds going up to 125,000,250,000 ante 25,000 with 4s-5s for Pappe_Ruk was looking great for the blind steal. But, wildman22222 woke up with a suited connector himself in the big blind as he called the extra 400K. The board gave Pappe_Ruk a little light on turn of: 7d-Th-Qh-3s giving him a few outs despite the flopped straight-flush draw of wildman22222. But, the Kh on the river completed wildman22222’s flush and Team Supa would bow out in sixth place for $23,250.00

Despite knocking out Pappe_Ruk, wildman22222 was still short stacked compared to the remainder of the table and several hands later found himself all-in preflop after open-pushing for 1.4 million from the button with blinds still at 125,000/250,000 ante 25,000. mozitas was sitting in the big blind with over nine million in chips and gambled a little while calling with Th-8h. wildman22222 did have a slight lead in the race with Ac-3s that expanded with the Ad-6d-5c flop. The waters muddied quickly on the turn of 7d giving mozitas an open-ended straight draw which filled on the river 4h giving mozitas the higher straight. Fifth place and $30,750.000 for the Farmington Hills native wildman22222 left us with four.

Chop talks consisted of two lines of texts and crickets as the remaining players had a bit of play compared to the blinds and the remaining four got back to work.

If you’re interested in the recently completed APPT Auckland tournament, be sure to check out the posts here, or watch the video below of Daniel Craker’s victory:

Watch APPT Auckland 08: The Winner - Daniel Craker on PokerStars.tv

wdrzich pulled out of a slight hole as he took his “short” stack of 5.7 million and pocket eights 8s-8d to war against mozitas who called from the small blind leaving 3.5 million behind with Ah-Qd. The pocket pair held up shipping the 11.7 million chip pot to wdrzich who would take down the blinds in the very next hand, and continued the rush the very next hand against the now short-stacked mozitas. With blinds still at 150,000/300,000 ante 30,000 mozitas tried to get his sailboats(4s-4h) to port from UTG while open-shoving for 3.4 million but wdrzich’s pocket ladies (Qh-Qs) sprung out of the small blind for the snap call and the Td-7h-Jc-3c-6s board sent mozitas home in fourth place with $38,625.00 from big stack to out in three hands.

wdrzich meanwhile zoomed to the top of the leaderboard with the 7.3 million chip pot with his 15.8 million chips and the chat box finally opened up the dialogue for a chip-chop based on the below chip stacks:

ael1979: 8,172,416
wdrzich: 14,688,663
Pokky Star: 13,308,921

After some careful negotiations as wdrzich and Pokky Star gave up a little bit to ael1979 we have a deal leaving $10K for our champ!

ael1979: $65,005
wrdzich: $74,649
Pokky Star: $71,595

After the chop, the players contracted an allergy to board cards as they saw a whopping five flops in over thirty five hands as the chips floated towards whoever would shove over the top of the opening raiser but resulting in no real changes of the chip counts as the blinds were escalating to 300,000/600,000 ante 60,000.

But, just six minutes prior to the jump in the blinds and the break, Pokky Star and ael1979 got their chips into the middle preflop as ael1979 was all-in while PokkyStar kept 9.3 million behind:

Pokky Star: Js-Jd
ael1979: 9h-9d

The dominating pocket jacks of Pokky Star would hold up on the board of Qd-2s-Qs-3c-2h as ael1979’s shot at a Sunday Warm-up hat trick would fall short of the back of the net but, via the chop, he received $65,005 for third place.

Starting off with a nearly three to one chip lead, Pokky Star would not relinquish his stack. wdrzich managed a double-up after 28 hands holding Qc-Th and getting a call from Pokky Star with Jh-5h, but due to Pokky Star’s pre-flop aggression, the double-up only returned the chip stacks to the amounts they started with at the beginning of heads-up play.

Five hands later with 26 million for Pokky Star and nearly nine million for wdrzich tonight’s winner was named. The blinds sitting at 300,000/600,000 ante 60,000 and wdrzich shoved his nine million from the button with 7s-5s and Pokky Star made the call with Ad-Jd

The flopped pair of aces (9h-Ah-4d) left wdrzich drawing extremely thin, the Qh on the turn had wdrzich falling through the ice and drawing dead as the 8c was dropped on the river for legal purposes. wdrzich snagged $74,649 for second place from the three-way chop as Pokky Star got the extra $10K and $81,595 for being is this week’s Sunday Warm-up Champ!

10-12-08 Sunday Warm-up Results
(based on three-way chop)

1. Pokky Star $81,595.00
2. wdrzich $74,649.00
3. ael1979 $65,005.00
4. mozitas $38,625.00
5. wildman22222 $30,750
6. Pappe_Ruk $23,250.00
7. Puniponken $15,750.00
8. bot432931 $9,750.00
9. IBLUFFULOL $6,750.00

There is quite a common situation that arises on the bubble of sit and go tournaments that can hugely improve your win rate if you can spot and take advantage of it. It usually comes about when playing three or four handed on the bubble of a sit and go tournament when you and another (or two others in the case of nine seater games) player both have chips, and there is a short stack trying to survive until the money. Many players just go after the short stack and try and get heads up or three handed, although frequently this is a mistake.

With the chips and the pay out structure as they are, you actually want the short stack around, as it enables you to bully the other bigger stack(s) and let you accumulate the chips necessary to take that all important first place (remember that although making the money is very important in sit and go tournaments, you have to always be thinking about winning due to the very large percentage of the prize pool that goes to first).

It is often correct in such a situation to actually either fold your small blind to the short stack, or fold to any of their shoves even with very strong hands. With the short stack treading water in this way, you are free to relentlessly attack the other big stack(s), who will be very loathe to play a big pot with you when there is a short stack who they believe will inevitably bust out if they just hang on for a little longer - in the hope that this will guarantee them some money.

As the blinds are so high by this stage of a sit and go, you only need to do this for a few orbits to start pulling away from the other big stack(s), giving you that vital chip lead for finishing the game off. This strategy can be so effective that you can often reduce both players to very short stacks, I have frequently seen the other big stack bust before the short stack, either continuing to fold too much or tilting as they realise what has been going on and shoving very weak hands and getting looked up.

The bubble of any tournament throws up great opportunities to make odd plays that will benefit you in the long run - no where is this more true than in a six max sit and go. Although keeping a short stack alive might feel counter intuitive at this stage of a sit and go, it is frequently the correct thing to do to enable you to bully the other player(s). Think carefully about the best way to get first place - not just into the money - and watch the dollars roll in.

Can someone please pick up Rudi Johnson’s helmet before
Tatum Bell makes off with it? Thank you.

That was Terrell Owens on SportsCenter this morning, repeatedly saying,
"I don’t," and "What part of ‘I don’t’ don’t you
understand?" to questions that weren’t audible. What follows is my best
guess at the rest of the conversation.

Reporter: Terrell, do you have any comment as to why
you were yelling at Andre Gurode?
Owens: I don’t.
Reporter: Do you feel frustrated that you only caught four balls
yesterday?
Owens: I don’t.
Reporter: Do you have any intention of saying anything interesting about
that football game?
Owens: I don’t.
Reporter: So, um … do you enjoy dressing like a jockey?
Owens: I don’t.
Reporter: Then why do you look like you’re about to hop on Tony Romo’s
back, whip him and call him Seabiscuit?
Owens: I don’t.
Reporter: Yes you do. Is this your Halloween costume? Kanye West if he
were a jockey? Do you intend to go trick-or-treating like this?
Owens: I don’t.
Reporter: Do you have any hot tips on the Preakness?
Owens: I don’t.
Reporter: Do you think Andre Gurode would look good in a lemon yellow
v-neck sweater?
Owens: I don’t.
Reporter: Is that why you were yelling at him? Do you think someone in a
lemon yellow v-neck sweater can be just as good a person as you?
Owens: I don’t.
Reporter: I’m not wearing a lemon yellow v-neck sweater. Do you think I
can still be a good person?
Owens: I don’t.
Reporter: Miles Austin and Patrick Crayton don’t dress as stylishly as
you, and Tony Romo still throws them the football. Do you deny that this makes
you angry?
Owens: I don’t.
Reporter: You don’t deny it?
Owens: What part of "I don’t" don’t you understand?