Antonius Samuel WINS the $1million partypoker Dusk Till Dawn Grand Prix for $100,000!
After a mammoth battle across days of high-drama here in Nottingham, we have a champion!
Antonius Samuel has done it, and in some style! Antonius raised all-in with and Stacy called it off with . Coore was cruising on the board of … but the ten of spades landed on the river and that was enough to seal the victory for Antonius Samuel!
Stacy Coore wins $65,000 but Antonius Samuel takes $100,000 and the trophy!
Thank you for your company and we look forward to welcoming you to a live partypoker event at Dusk Till Dawn very soon – who know, maybe you could qualify for a cent and walk away with six figures in your bank account!
The Deciding Hand?
With the pace of heads-up absolutely electric, it’s no surprise these two are all-in yet again, and despite having 30 big blinds (Antonius) and 36bb (Stacy), all the chips are in the middle, after Stacy raises to 10 million, Antonius pops it to 60 million and Stacy’s quick shove is called even quicker!
Stacy:
Antonius:
What a cooler! To gasps, silence on the turn then a deafening roar on the river as an ace arrives, the board plays out to leave Stacy on next to nothing with just three big blinds. Antonius is on the brink!
Play The Rush
Just a couple of hands are raise-folded between the pair of combatants, and then we have another all-in and a call! This time, Antonius (pictured above) is in trouble again, holding just to Stacy’s , but the flop of suits him down to the ground, and when the turn and river fall , Antonius’ fans go bonkers, cheering and swaying three-deep at the rail. Coore is reeling. He had his opponent almost beaten, but Antonius Samuel has proved that in poker, no-one is dead while they still have chips… Game on!
Heads-Up Begins… and Antonius Bounces Off the Canvas!
Heads-up has begun as you might imagine – with Stacy Coore keen to press home his incredible chip advantage of around 6:1 in chips. After taking the next hand, he’s even better off and in the very next hand, we have an all-in and a call straight away!
Stacy:
Antonius:
Antonius needs a minor miracle to survive, and he gets one as the flop lands ! A on the turn opens up the diamond flush draw for Stacy too, but the river doubles Antonius up to 72,000.
A couple of hands later, we see both players slow-play a weak queen to the river, where they go ballistic when they both make Broadway on the river. It’s all-in, call, players standing up, fans whooping…then the pair of them chop it up.
Stacy – 248m chips
Antonius – 75m
Blind on blind
Tasos is eliminated small blind vs big, he shoves with threes and runs into the [Ax] [Qx] of Stacy. It is a flip, but an ace comes on the flop and the controversial Grigoriou is out in third for $45,000.
Bustouts, bustouts everywhere
We can’t catch a break before the next player falls and it is the former chip leader, Naheem. He gets it all in with [Ax] [10x] vs the [9x] [9x] of Stacy. Despite catching an ace on the flop, Stacy grabs a two-outer, the out of nowhere to turn Naheem dead. The 10 on the river just rubs it in.
Seat open, feature table
We lose the short-stacked Vlad, who has been sitting on a short stack for quite a while now, gets it in behind and does not improve his [Ax] [3x] vs the [Ax] [Kx] of Antonius. Five down, three to go!
What a fold…?
Folded around the table, Antonius pushes all of his stack into the middle. Vasos folds, showing [10x] [10x] for a very tight laydown, which was met by noises of confusion from the crowd. Antonius, in an effort to get a dig on his opponent, reaches out for his cards and shows… [8x] [8x]!! The crowd love this!
Dan Harwood departs in sixth
The average age at the table has just rocketed as we lose the baby-faced Daniel in a shocking showdown. Harwood, raising from the button, is called by Tasos Grigoriou in the big blind, who has not yet looked at his cards! The board comes [9x] [Qx] [10x] and is check-checked. There was a bit of confusion where Daniel swung his chips outwards, thinking that Tasos had put him all in, but no betting took place on the flop. The turn brought the and was checked to Harwood, who put the majority of his chips across the line. Having now checked his cards, Vasos snap-called and slammed down for the nut straight. Daniel, stunned, turned over [Qx] [Qx] for an awful bad beat, one that was reflected by the groans of the crowd. Needing the board to pair, Dan had 10 outs but couldn’t improve with the and left the table, shocked, but $19,000 richer.
Man down! (Finally!)
There’s an all in and a call and guess whose life is on the line? That’s right, Kully Sidhu is all in, this time with [5x] [2x]. It wouldn’t have taken a strong hand to call, but Stacy has picked up [Ax] [Qx]. Sidhu is forced to play the board which runs out [8x] [7x] [Jx] [8x] [Kx], but Stacy will take the small pot to knock out the former EPT Main Event finalist.
Sidhu, Sidon’t
Sidhu bluff-shoves for 41m from mid position with , but Antonius has woken up with and is all in himself. With the rest of the action folded, we see three ducks hit the table – (for those of you less familiar with poker slang, that is three deuces). A [9x] and [Ax] completes the board and Kully, who started the final table with the chip lead, is now left with just 4.2m – barely a big blind.
Vlad Lays Down Ladies
We’ve just seen an interesting hand here on the final table of the $1million partypoker Grand Prix final. After a raise pre-flop, just two players saw the flop of but when Vlad min-bet his QQ and Dan Harwood raised, he got the fold. Vlad folded and Harwood (pictured above) showed 5-6, punching his palm with joy.
Hard Coore
Stacy Coore continues to impress here on the final table, and having been as short as 8 big blinds not that long ago, he is now a major player as the final seven battle on. He has made some moves, has Stacy, and used his position better than anyone as the tension rises. First, we saw him bully Dan Harwood around, before then making a c-bet that looked so light against Nadeem Ali when the flop came and Stacy used his late position and chipstack to get the fold from his opponent.
Don’t sweat the small stuff
Sidhu is all in on the very next hand with . Naheem, in the blinds, is priced in to call and does so with . Sidhu, suprised to be a ahead, loves the flop. However, the quadruples Naheem’s out, creating a straight flush draw. Luckily for Sidhu, the does not help his opponent and he wins the pot with Jack-high!
The bigger they are, the harder they fall
Things continue to go downhill for Sidhu as he loses another all in, this time to Naheem, who was an UTG raiser. Sidhu shoved on him from late position and Naheem called when it was folded around to him. Naheem’s were [Kx] [Kx] a huge favourite over Sidhu’s lower pair, [5x] [5x] and were even further behind when a king hit on the flop. Kully’s stack has been decimated over the last few hands and Naheem has doubled up to become one of the biggest stacks.
Grigoriou doubles up through Sidhu
A big early position raise from Grigoriou with more than half of his stack gets through to Sidhu, who has [Jx] [Jx]. He puts the short stack to this test by announcing all in and Grigoriou calls, showing [Ax] [Qx]. The flop comes [2x] [5x] [7x]. The miracle Queen comes on the turn and there is no Jack for Sidhu on the river. Grigoriou, who had around 30,000,000, now has about 75,000,000.
Another heart-warming tale
One of the standout performances has to have come from Daniel Harwood and that goes much further back than this tournament. Just 18 months ago, Daniel was playing in the Dusk till Dawn Pub league and it was through that that he won a seat in last year’s Grand Prix. This year, he had made the final table and guaranteed a five-figure sum. Nice work Daniel!
Chip-counts at the Break
With seven players still remaining, the chip-counts reflect the swing-o-meter that has been this final table. It’s Kuljinder Sidhu in the driving seat as we head towards two more levels which will be undoubtedly decisive.
Chip-counts:
Kuljinder Sidhu – 90.5 million chips
Stacy Coore – 88.7m
Nadeem Ali – 45.5m
Daniel Harwood – 45.2m
Antonius Samuel – 36.3m
Vlad Lazariciu – 30.6m
Tasos Grigoriou – 19.6m
All ins for Stacy and Grigoriou, no sweat just yet
The action is folded around to Stacy Coore on the button, who raises. Sidhu in the small blind folds to Harwood in the big. He puts in a three-bet from his comfortably-sized stack and Stacy comes over the top with a big all in. Harwood thinks for a while and shakes his head, folding reluctantly. Stacy asks ‘Wanna see?’ and shows . Harwood replies with a cool nod.
The very next hand is opened with Grigoriou pushing for all of his chips under the gun. It is folded round to Antonius in the BB. He stares though his sunglasses at Grigoriou but he is giving nothing away. The hand is folded. We haven’t seen an all-in and call for a while now.
Fishes and chips
I think it is important to mention that the blinds have just gone up to 1,200,000/2,400,000, with an ante of 300,000. That is six times the starting stack to this tournament!
Samuel Slaying ‘Em
Antonius Samuel has already made a superstar bluff here at the DTD Grand Prix, and he’s now showing his skills at this intense final table. After pushign Dan Harwood off a hand pre-flop and showing A-Q off-suit, Samuel called Kuljinder Sidhu’s raise to 8m in the next hand to see a flop of . Both players checked, but Samuel led the turn of and elicited a crying fold from Sidhu.
Stacy Coore won the next hand, and it was a valuable one, too. He raised to 5.6m pre-flop and got two callers in Samuel and Nadeem Ali, who both then had to fold to Stacy’s 10.6m c-bet on a flop of .
Chip betting controversy at the felt
Who doesn’t love a bit of controversy? On a [6x] [Kx] [2x] flop, Vlad bets into Grigoriou, who had checked. Grigoriou was thinking for a while and fiddling with his chips while doing so. Without verbally declaring anything, some of his chips fell across the line and the dealer announced it as a call. Grigoriou seemed outraged and suggested that he did not want to call. As the rule states, the call stood, but he open-mucked his hand [Ax] [Qx] before the turn card was shown. Vlad showed [Ax] [Kx] while collecting his chips, but Grigoriou continued to argue against the earlier decision.
Stacy’s chips go Vlad’s way
Stacy and Vlad go head to head on a [4x] board. Vlad shoves over Stacy’s bet, which is eventually called. Vlad tables [Kx] [4x] and Stacy shows [10x] [4x] for a lower two-pair. Stacy needs a second Ten on the river, but it doesn’t come. Frustration shows on Stacy’s face as he loses another load of chips to an opponent.
Patrick Sunter exits for $10,000
Daniel Harwood in seat 1 raises preflop, Sunter finds in the small blind and flat calls. Flop comes with a King and a Queen and Sunter pushes for the remainder of his stack, about 33,000,000. Harwood snap calls and shows [Qx] [Qx]. Sunter is well behind and needs to catch big time to survive, but the board bricks out for him. Unlucky flop for him, a hard one to get away from, but he leaves smiling.
Break time – 8 players remaining
An early break time for the players allows them to relax and compose their stern poker faces ready for the upcoming two hour stint. We’ll be back shortly.
Big all in between Coore and Sidhu
Coore and Sidhu are both all in preflop. It appears that Coore is the all in stack having lost further pots since his set over set cooler before the break. He is also behind before the flop with [Ax] [Qx] to Sidhu’s [Ax] [Kx] but there is a Queen to save Stacy! Sidhu cannot improve and Coore comes from behind to save his tournament life.
Przewiezlikowski is the first sent home
Poor Bartosz Przewiezlikowski is our first elimination of the final table. The amateur put all his chips and faith in with [5x] [5x], but were dominated by the [7x] [7x] of Sidhu. The board ran [6x] [Ax] [Jx] [Jx] [7x] to improve Sidhu’s hand to a full house and Bartosz was gone.
Set over set action early on
A great double up very early on for Nadeem Ali who had been short stacked. Following Ali’s open and flat call by Stacy Coore, a [4x] [Ax] [Qx] board was check-checked. The [9x] on the turn received a check-bet-call, before Ali shipped for his remaining 17,000,000 on the river. Coore called showing [4x] [4x] for a flopped set, but Ali had [9x] [9x] for a higher set achieved on the turn. Not a major problem for Coore who was, prior to the hand, one of the biggest stacks, but with the blinds and antes as high as they are, he will definitely feel it.
The battle for $100,000 begins
After 20 long, grueling hours of poker, play at the final table starts. There is sweating, stress and mental torture… and that’s just behind the scenes! These guys are competing for a six-figure payout and only one can win it. Let the action commence!
The bubble bursts in dramatic fashion
Losing that hand dropped Banko out of any contention and had no option other than an all-in move on the very next hand with [Kx] [Qx]. He was very live when his two callers, Tasos Grigoriou and Victor Moreira showed [Ax] [Jx] and [8x] [8x] respectively, the latter also being all in for around 7,500,000. On a [7x] [7x] [6x] [5x] board, it looked as though Moreira would be getting the double up he dearly needed, but was left heartbroken when the [Jx] peeled on the river. “That’s poker!” shrugged Moreira, who also had given up the final golden chip, which would have been worth an additional $25,000 to him had he gone out one spot higher. It was a double knock out to create the final table and Grigoriou took a big pot with it.
Sidhu doubles up, becomes monster chip leader from Banko
Following a raise and re-raise preflop, Sidhu shoved for around 30 million and was instantly called by Banko. Sidhu sighed and slowly turned over and was behind to Banko’s . Following a flop that offered Sidhu little hope, out of nowhere came the King. Banko did not hit on the river and was left with little more than 3,000,000, while Sidhu breathed a sigh of relief and couldn’t quite believe the 75,000,000 chip mass being pushed his way.
Not So Rosy for Rosen
With just 12 players left, we have lost Mats Rosen after he shoved ten big blinds with A-8 and was called by Kully Sidhu’s 9-T. That made a runner-runner straight, which sent Mats home. He’ll be back for the deepstack here at DTD before a trip to Vegas so he’s still fairly happy (above).
In For a Penny
Those who enjoy a good return will love this story. Lee Connett, who busted in 17th earlier today, gained entry to the DTD Grand Prix by one of the online ‘penny roll’ qualifiers and has lasted the longest of all of them. He earned $5,500 for what was essentially a three-day freeroll. What a great return for such a small investment and showing thousands of players that it really can be done. Congratulations Lee!
Banko Pays The Price
It’s not often big stacks have clashed in the last couple of levels, as – quite sensibly – anyone with a decent stack wants to do everything they can to make the final table with a decent shot at the title.
However, Kully Sidhu and Adam Banko have got into it together, and we joined the action on a completed board of [As} and with 17m or so in the pot. Sidhu open-shoved from about another 30m or so, and eventually got Banko to fold, having paid a hefty price to get to that river.
Will ‘Kully’ get his hands on the stunning, World-Cup-like trophy (above)?
Three Depart In Mad Five Minutes
With just two tables remaining, you might assume that the play would tighten up with no-one wanting to miss out on a final table berth when the top prize is an eye-watering $100,000! However, it’s been all go and we’ve lost three to bring us down to just fifteen hopefuls.
First, Lee Connett busted on the outer table in just the second hand, before his replacement, Jack Allen took his seat and promptly busted too. To be fair to Allen, he was left extremely short and shoved from the button with just 1.5 big blinds holding K-6, and was snapped off by the pocket kings of Patrick Slater, who held to knock him out. James Clarke was third to go, his short-stack pushed over the line with [Jd 5d] only to see [Ad 9d] look him up and hold through a dry board.
Live In Your Living Room
As well as enjoying our updates from Dusk Till Dawn right here, you can now watch the action unfold live on the 30-minute delayed stream from the partypoker/DTD $1million Grand Prix.
I’ll Take That With Chips
All the pressure is on the feature table of course, with fans three deep at the rail here at Dusk Till Dawn for the DTD $1million Grand Prix in association with partypoker. With players enjoying a quick breather from the action, we’ve raced round and found out who has what.
Mats Rosen – 12 million chips + 1 golden chip!
Fuad Serhan – 26m
Jack Allen – 7.6m
Antonius Samuel – 25.4m
Bartosz Przewiezlikowski – 17.6m
Daniel Harwood – 29.7m
Stacy Coore – 6m
Sarbjit Kular – 8.6m
Vlad Lazariciu – 39.9m
Break Time for Both Tables
17 players left and both of them take a 20-minute breather. First of all, here are the chip-counts for the outer table, who enjoy less pressurised conditions as no bright lights, daunting trophy or close rail. There is one ‘golden chip’ in play, which is important and whoever has that chip when the final table starts will WIN an additional $25,000 to whatever they cash! If they bust, the chip disappears…
Outer Counts:
Lee Connett – 9,000,000
Kuljinder Sidhu – 41,500,000
James Clarke – 13,000,000 +golden chip!
Patrick Slater – 36,000,000
Adam Banko – 33,000,000
Victor Manuel Moreira – 8,000,000
Tasos Grigoriou – 22,500,000
Nadeem Ali – 25,000,000
Can ‘Kully’ Take It Down?
As we’ve mentioned, we have Kuljinder ‘Kully’ Sidhu (pictured) playing and currently dominating our outer table with around 41 million chips.
Sidhu is one of the more successful players remaining in the tournament and has amassed somewhere in the region of $325,000 over his poker playing career in major tournaments. His performances in 2013 alone were enough to earn him more than a third of that, most of which came from a deep-run in the EPT10 London Main Event. Making the final table, Sidhu finished in eighth place for more than £60,000. He will have to come second or higher to beat that score tonight.
Feature Table Chip-counts
With the feature table going live very soon, with streaming on a half-hour delay, here are all the movers and shakers under the spotlight…
Mats Rosen – 18 million chips
Fuad Serhan – 27.1m
Jack Allen – 21.1m
Antonius Samuel – 16m
Bartosz Przewiezlikowski – 15.4m
Daniel Harwood – 21.4m
Stacy Coore – 5.9m
Sarbjit Kular – 15.9m
Vlad Lazariciu – 32.6m
Sidhu Sees A Flop
There can be no doubting who has the power at the outer table, with Kuljinder Sidhu table captain with the most chips. Having cashed plenty of times in his fledgling career, the $100,000 top prize here would be a few cents above his biggest cash to date, so he’ll be desperate to reach the final table in good stead.
Having called Victor Moreira’s pre-flop raise of 2.5 million, saw a flop of only to fold to Moreira’s c-bet of 4 million. Sidhu protects his chip-lead at the table and we’ll tell you a little more about one of our most well-known players remaining in a few minutes here on the blog…
Outer Table Counts
With just two tables now remaining, 18 players are left. Here are all the chip-counts from the outer table, before we bring you the stacks from the feature…
Lee Connett – 13,400,000
Kuljinder Sidhu – 41,100,000
James Clarke – 25,800,000
Adam Bramley – 11,500,000
Patrick Slater – 5,800,000
Adam Banko – 41,700,000
Victor Manuel Moreira – 14,200,000
Tasos Grigoriou – 10,700,000
Nadeem Ali – 20,300,000
This Way to $100,000
We now have 21 players left fighting for the $100,000 top prize, with the blinds at 300,000/600,000/100,000 ante. The average stack is just over 17 million chips and there are 357,505,000 chips in play.
These guys make Bond and Le Chiffre look like they’re playing a home game for matches down at the MI5 club.
Three Tables, One Winner
We have just 22 players left in the mix, and we’ll be bringing you the chip counts in a few minutes. Don’t forget, the winner will receive the cheque for a cool million dollars.
All the lights point to the feature table, but who will make it to the final nine?
Chip Leader, Our Leader?
Mats Rosen (pictured below at the top right of shot) came into play today as the overnight chip leader, with over 26 million chips – if that sounds a lot, there are over 375 million chips in play! – but he is no longer top of the pile. He’s not out of the running, but took several early hits to Tristan Chaplin, before the latter ran A-K into pocket kings to bust.
Rosen was on the ropes after he lost a 14 million-chip pot with KK against 6-7 when all the money went in on a 5-8-A flop, a four on the river causing Mats to slap his thigh in anger before sitting back down. He got his twenty big blinds of just over 8 million at the time into the middle with pocket aces soon after, and was relieved to survive a very sweaty run-out where he thought his opponent might have rivered the straight, however, to bounce back up to 16 million or so. That’s around 32 big blinds right now.
It’s Game Time
Hello and welcome to the live updates from the final day of the 2015 partypoker Grand Prix Million where one lucky player is going to leave the Dusk Till Dawn casino in Nottingham with a cheque for a cool $100,000.
There are some talented players still in the hunt for that six-figure prize and everyone who has navigated their way through to this stage are through to the finale on merit. Hold onto your hats, ladies and gentlemen, this should be a fantastic ride!
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