Nemeth Tops Day 1 of GG Spring Festival Event H-06: $25,500 Sunday Five Million
The opening day of the 2021 GG Spring Festival has kicked off with a bang as more than $15 million in prize money was up for grabs. And the biggest slice of that came in Event H-06: $25,500 Sunday Five Million, which came with an ambitious guarantee of $5 million. The goal was missed by a mere two entries but it needed 105 unique players and an enormous 93 re-entries to all but get there.
After a seemingly never-ending bubble period, the nine-handed final table was determined in a hurry. Hungarian High Roller regular Andras Nemeth topped the leaderboard by quite some margin when all was done for the night. Nemeth was among the players to double during the bubble and wrapped up Day 1 with a massive stack of 5,972,752.
That's more than second-placed Guillaume Nolet (2,557,181) and third-placed Francisco "VaPaCooler" Benitez (2,324,245) have combined. Another two players follow very close behind in Elio Fox (2,306,206) and Benjamin Rolle (2,300,124).
There is a small gap to Matthias Eibinger, who ended Day 1 with a healthy stack of 1,813,000. All further contenders are below 1 million in chips including Yuri Dzivielevski (975,172), "FlowTao" (874,592), and Juan Pardo Dominguez (676,728).
Final Table Line-Up GGFS Event H-06: $25,500 Sunday Five Million
| Position | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Andras Nemeth | Hungary | 5,972,752 | 119 |
| 2 | Guillaume Nolet | Canada | 2,557,181 | 51 |
| 3 | Francisco "VaPaCooler" Benitez | Uruguay | 2,324,245 | 46 |
| 4 | Elio Fox | United States | 2,306,206 | 46 |
| 5 | Benjamin Rolle | Austria | 2,300,124 | 46 |
| 6 | Matthias Eibinger | Austria | 1,813,000 | 36 |
| 7 | Yuri Dzivielevski | Brazil | 975,172 | 20 |
| 8 | FlowTao | Georgia | 874,592 | 17 |
| 9 | Juan Pardo Dominguez | Spain | 676,728 | 14 |
Big Blinds based on the final table roll-back to ensure an average of at least 40 blinds
It is expected that the blinds revert back to 25,000/50,000 and a running ante of 6,000. The final table will recommence at 8.05 p.m. GMT and each level will feature 20 hands until a winner is crowned.
The Action of the Day
More than 50 players were seated when the joint most-expensive tournament of the festival got underway and the field grew consistently. Early in the second level, high-stakes MTT and cash game player Wiktor Malinowski became the first casualty of the event. It would be one of several bullets he fired and none of them brought any success, as Malinowski came up a few spots shy of the money.
Eventual chip leader Andras Nemeth was also among the early casualties when his jam with a busted draw was called by Artur Martirosian right before the first break of the day. Nemeth jumped back in, later on, failed to hold up with pocket aces to then try one more and make that entry count.
For GGPoker ambassador Fedor Holz, it was an expensive Sunday session as he fired multiple shells without getting close to the money in this tournament. The same applied for Michael Addamo, Connor Drinan, Lev "LevMeAlone" Gottlieb, Michael Zhang and David Yan to name all but a few notables with multiple entries.
Once the registration closed with many hopefuls jumping in at the very last minute, the eliminations came at an incredibly fast pace Bert Stevens was among the chip leaders by then after a hot streak of all-in showdowns and he was joined at the top of the leaderboard by Adrian Mateos, David Peters, Guillaume Nolet, and Benjamin Rolle.
As fast as the eliminations kept coming, as incredible was the bubble period. More than a dozen all-in showdowns without casualty made things shallow and eventually it was one of the medium stacks who came up short of a payday. Adrian Mateos ended up as the bubble boy when he ran with queens into the aces of Nemeth.
Right after that, the gloves came off as the field was quickly reduced to the final two tables. Stevens was no longer in contention by then as a string of all-in showdowns left the online MTT legend short. He was ultimately sent to the rail in 19th place, "judd trump" topped the three-way showdown only to exit in the very next hand.
Nemeth won a race with ace-king against the pocket jacks of Samuel Vousden to take over the top spot and pulled further ahead after busting Dirk Gerritse and winning a bit pot off Elio Fox without showdown. Timothy Adams ran out of steam on the final two tables, running with ace-king into aces. And a few minutes later, the final table was already reached. Mikalai Vaskaboinikau and David Peters fell in quick succession, Pedro Garagnani then found no help with a dominated ace.
The final nine contenders have $108,480 locked up for their efforts but all eyes are set on the top prize of $1,084,892. Stay tuned to find out who will win the first $25,500 High Roller during the GG Spring Festival, as the PokerNews team will be back after a good night's sleep.