Jouhkimainen Leads the Final Table of SCOOP-33-H: $5,200 NLHE [8-Max, High Roller Club SE], $1M Gtd
It took a little over nine hours of play to whittle a field of 257 entrants down to a final table of eight in SCOOP-33-H: $5,200 NLHE [8-Max, High Roller Club SE], $1M Gtd . Leading the field into the final day is Joni "bustoville" Jouhkimainen, who had a string of knockouts once the bubble burst to propel him to the top spot. Of the 257 entrants, 163 players and 94 re-entries helped build a prize pool of $1,285,000, well past the juicy $1,000,000 guarantee put up by PokerStars.
Jouhkimainen, who boasts just a hair under $4 million in Hendon Mob reported tournament earnings, started his streak by knocking out "DingeBrinker" (20th - $14,576) with ace-eight. A short time later, Jouhkimainen picked up Big Slick and found an ace on the flop, while Michael "imluckbox" Addamo (16th - $14,576) had turned a pair and an open-ender. Addamo failed to hit, and Jouhkimainen neared the chip lead. It would be the final elimination of the evening that secured his spot on top, as he woke up with ace-queen when Daniel "SmilleThHero" Smiljkovic (9th - $29,349) tried to steal the blinds with king-seven of spades. Jouhkimainen held on and sent the field off the virtual felt with one less player than was planned to end the day with.
Jouhkimainen returns tomorrow with a healthy 85 big blind stack, while Pablo "pabritz" Brito sits in a comfortable second place with 70 big blinds of his own to play with. Two players from the United Kingdom fall next in the pecking order, as Jon "luckyfish89" Clark and Christoph "26071985" Vogelsang both hold solid stacks. The rest of the table is rounded out by Simon "C. Darwin2" Mattsson, who managed to survive being knocked down to under two big blinds in the middle stages to advance, Teun "tinnoemulder" Mulder, and two unknowns in "a_new_hope13" and "Driekus888".
SCOOP-33-H: $5,200 NLHE [8-Max, High Roller Club SE], $1M Gtd Final Table Chip Counts
| Rank | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Joni "bustoville" Jouhkimainen | Finland | 5,932,421 | 85 |
| 2 | Pablo "pabritz" Brito | Brazil | 4,910,420 | 70 |
| 3 | Jon "luckyfish89" Clark | United Kingdom | 3,654,382 | 52 |
| 4 | Christoph "26071985" Vogelsang | United Kingdom | 3,224,718 | 46 |
| 5 | a_new_hope13 | Russia | 2,969,235 | 42 |
| 6 | Simon "C. Darwin2" Mattsson | Sweden | 2,015,229 | 29 |
| 7 | Teun "tinnoemulder" Mulder | Netherlands | 1,613,635 | 23 |
| 8 | Driekus888 | Netherlands | 1,359,960 | 19 |
Action of the Day
Twenty-five players were ready at the start of day's play, and three PokerStars Ambassadors were on the felt in a hurry, including Sam "SamSquid" Grafton, Lex "L. Veldhuis" Veldhuis, and Parker "tonkaaaa" Talbot. While Grafton ended up making a strong early showing, including holding the chip lead during the early levels, none of the trio were able to find their way to a cash.
More early risers such as Charlie "Epiphany77" Carrel, Fedor "CrownUpGuy" Holz, and Martin "M.nosbocaJ" Jacobson all also saw their early bounty of chips soon flit away shy of the money, and David "dpeters17" Peters, Wiktor "Iimitless" Malinowski and Alexandros "Pwndidi" Theologis all found themselves shy of a cash as well.
On the bubble, Thomas "WushuTM" Muehloecker found himself in good shape to double with ace-king against the ace-seven of Jon "luckyfish89" Clark. Clark was able to spike aces and sevens, however, and Muehloecker became the final player to leave without a payday.
From there, bustouts came at a hurried pace for a short time, and Jason "jakoon1985" Koon (30th - $11,543), Sami "Lrslzk" Kelopuro (24th - $11,543) and Mike "SirWatts" Watson (22nd - $14,576) found themselves on the rail in short order. Conor "1_conor_b_1" Beresford (14th - $18,406) held the chip lead for a chunk of the late stages of the day, but he cooled off and found himself out a few spots shy of Day 2. The day came to a close on the heels of a double knockout during hand-for-hand play; in addition to Daniel "SmilleThHero" Smiljkovic's aforementioned bustout in 9th, a short-stacked Pascal "Pass_72" Lefrancois (10th - $23,242) couldn't spin it up with nine-six against the jack-seven of Teun "tinnoemulder" Mulder, and also missed out on Day 2 action.
Day 2 Agenda
The final eight players will return at 1:05 EST on Monday, April 12th to play down to a winner. The tournament currently is in Level 26 (35,000/70,000/8,750) and blinds will increase to 30 minutes in length once the current level is completed.
The PokerStars Twitch channel will be live too with James Hartigan and Joe Stapleton manning the booth and calling all the action. The hole cards will be shown on a 30-minute security delay and the PokerNews updates will be on the same delay to avoid spoilers.
Here's what the remaining field is playing for:
| Place | Prize |
|---|---|
| 1 | $247,089 |
| 2 | $188,429 |
| 3 | $143,695 |
| 4 | $109,582 |
| 5 | $83,567 |
| 6 | $63,728 |
| 7 | $48,598 |
| 8 | $37,061 |
PokerNews will be following all the final table action (on a 30-minute delay), so be sure to tune in and see which of our eight remaining players can take down the latest High Roller event as the SCOOP rolls on.