Pura.vida and Azamat Bagatov Chop the First $200K Guaranteed Sunday of 2014

The first $200k Guaranteed Sunday tournament of 2014 took place at partypoker on January 5 and what an action-packed event it was. By the time registration was no longer available, 1,205 players had exchanged $215 for 5,000 chips and the chance to win partypoker’s flagship tournament.

The $200K Guaranteed Sunday opened its doors at 18:30 GMT and by 03:53 GMT on Monday morning the dream of becoming the tournament’s champion was over for all but nine players. Usually, the final table is played 10 handed, but last call (11th) and TEECRAMES (10th) busted out during the same hand on the final table bubble, leaving only nine players in the hunt.

partypoker $200K Guaranteed Sunday Final Table (January 5, 2014)

pura.veda started the final table as a clear chip leader and on the first hand played he extended that lead further when he flopped a set of eights on a draw heavy board; pura.vida won an additional 367,000 chips in that hand.

Fifty-three hands played out before the first official casualty of the final table was decided. freebieZ min-raised to 50,000 from the hijack seat, JJanssen1960 three-bet to 118,888 on the button, freebieZ jammed all-in for 651,393 in total and JJanssen1960 quickly called. By the river the board read , leaving JJansen1960’s as the best hand, crushing the of freebieZ.

Another 34 hands were completed without a bust out, a fascinating fact considering the aggressive play at the table and the sheer number of all-in bets! Something had to give and it finally did when pura.vida clicked it open to 60,000 from early position and then called when a short-stacked evianwater1 moved all-in for 412,778 from the big blind. It was one of tournament poker’s many coinflips that would settle evianwater1’s fate, his needing to keep ahead of pura.vida’s . Unfortunately for evianwater1, his jacks stayed best on the flop, but the on the turn changed the course of the hand. The river bricked and evianwater1 was eliminated.

It was another coinflip that claimed the tournament life of BringCabbage. Azamat Bagatov min-raised to 60,000 after under-the-gun folded, BringCabbage looked down at in the small blind and he shoved his 387,344 stack into the middle of the virtual felt. Receiving pot odds of 1.52:1 on his money, Azamat Bagatov called with and when the five community cards fell , BringCabbage’s tournament was over.

Next to go, soon after BringCabbage, was JJanssen1960 and it was one of the biggest pots of the tournament. Pura.vida min-raised to 80,000 from under-the-gun, one player folded and JJanssen1960 three-bet to 188,888. Pura.vida moved all-in for over 1.2 million chips and JJanssen called off his 737,199 remaining chips. The latter showed [ and needed to hit against his opponent’s . Neither player improved on the board and the gargantuan 2,224,254 pot slid to pura.vida leaving only five players at the final table.

Five became four a few hands later when Crippledeckz moved all-in for 137,268 – or around 4 big blinds – with , pura.vida called from the small blind and Azamat Bagatov called in the big blind. Both actice players checked the flop. Pura.vida led for 143,934 upon the arrival on the turn and Azamat Bagatov folded. Pura.vida showed for top pair with a flush draw, which left Crippledeckz drawing dead. The inconsequential completed the board and Crippledeckz demise.

The very next hand saw Gray Area bust. Azamat Bagatov was first to act from the small blind he raised all-in, although his effective bet was 200,398as Grey Area was extremely short stacked. Grey Area called and turned over and was a substantial favourite over his opponent’s dominated . The first three community cards came into view – – followed by the then the flush completing on the river sent Grey Area to the rail and left only three players in the $200K Guaranteed Sunday.

humlan11 fought valiantly to claw his way back into contention against the two big stacks, but a cooler hand ended his comeback. Humlan11 opened from the small blind with a raise to 80,000, pura.vida put in a raise of his own to 185,000 only to see humlan11 four-bet to 580,000. Pura.vida had seen enough and tried to end the hand with an all-in bet of 1,782,790 and humlan11 called! Pura.vida flipped over and he was against . A board reading kept pura.vida’s ace-king in front and sent the tournament into the heads-up stage.

Going into heads-up, pura.vida held a 3,158,622 to 2,866,418 chip lead over Azamat Bagatov, although the lead was less than 10 big blinds. “look at the numbers?” asked Azamat Bagatov after the first hand of heads-up play, “yea” came the reply following the next hand, and with that the tournament ended as the players agreed to split the remaining prize pool as shown in the table below.

partypoker $200K Guaranteed Sunday Final Table Results (January 5, 2014)

*denotes a heads-up deal