The PokerStars Sunday Million regularly boasts a guaranteed prize pool of $1.5 million. On Sunday, that sum was lifted to $4 million. However, the total purse ultimately swelled to well over $7.2 million after a field of 36,169 players turned out.
Just two days after dealing its 40 billionth hand, the world’s largest online poker site continued to set records. This time, PokerStars hosted the largest Sunday Million in history, surpassing the field of 19,377 players that turned out in January for a special $2 million installment of the popular weekly tournament. This time, over 36,000 players either coughed up the $215 buy-in or won a satellite to get in, creating an online tournament with a larger top prize than the ongoing PokerStars-backed North American Poker Tour (NAPT) Venetian Main Event.
RichieRichZH banked $1.1 million for the win. To put that figure in perspective, the winner of the NAPT Venetian Main Event will earn $827,000, while DoylesRoom pro Hoyt Corkins took home $739,000 for winning the World Poker Tour’s (WPT) Southern Poker Championship in January. RichieRichZH’s prize is greater than the first place payouts of all but three tournaments held during the 2009 World Series of Poker (WSOP) in Las Vegas. RichieRichZH hails from Switzerland and won the Full Tilt Poker $100 Cubed in December for $9,200. Two days ago, he placed third in the PokerStars $100 rebuy for $7,700.
In the final hand on Sunday in the record-setting PokerStars tournament, RichieRichZH called lankeshwar’s all-in with pocket threes, while lankeshwar flipped up A-4 for a classic race situation. The flop came 5-2-10, giving lankeshwar a wheel draw in addition to two overcards, but the turn fell a nine. Drawing to an ace, three, or four on the river to double up and stay alive, lankeshwar watched as a five hit. He took home a $754,000 consolation prize.
Earning $506,000 for third place in the enormous Sunday Million was petinvest7. He held 10-9 of clubs on a board of 7-J-8-8 for the nut straight, but RichieRichZH showed 7-8 for a full house. Then, petinvest7 committed his remaining stack with Q-4 of hearts, but lost out to lankeshwar’s A-J. The board ran out 3-6-9-J-3, sending him to the virtual rails and setting up the heads-up showdown.
Fourth place went to well-known pro Erik “lirarerik” Friberg. He doubled up RichieRichZH when his pocket nines could not draw out on pocket jacks. Then, Friberg pushed with K-5 of spades pre-flop and RichieRichZH made the call with A-10. Friberg lost the hand, but took home $282,000 in the process. His big claim to fame is finishing eighth in the 2006 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event for $1.9 million. Jamie Gold came out on top in that event for $12 million, besting Paul Wasicka heads-up.
Here’s how the final table shook out in the historic online poker tournament:
1. RichieRichZH – $1,141,510
2. lankeshwar – $754,775
3. petinvest7 – $506,366
4. lirarerik – $282,118
5. WNYCEC – $151,910
6. DerHenker666 – $86,806
7. Jaggy42 – $57,870
8. highplaya – $43,403
9. Amoneymagnet – $28,935
On the online poker forum PocketFives.com, a 14-page thread developed about the $7.2 million prize pool tournament. Poster “bcdrmr” candidly calculated, “RichieRich made ~$84,556/hr this fine Sunday night… I’m SO fired up to go into work today where I made a little less than that all year long.” The $1.1 million first place prize is one of the largest ever awarded in the history of online poker.
Back in 2008, RichieRichZH represented his home country of Switzerland during the PokerStars World Cup of Poker. He was paired up with 88778877 in the 34-nation field and can now add a victory in the largest Sunday Million ever held to his tournament resume. PokerStars happily accepts players from the United States and around the world. Next week, the prize pool will return to its customary $1.5 million.
i played against richierich a week ago. such a horrible player, so HORRIBLE