PokerStars Sunday Million Tournament on October 25th saw a very good turnout of players, a good size increase from previous weeks. The tournament had 8,242 players competing for their piece of the $1.5 million guaranteed prize pool. But with so many competing the prize pool was increased to $1,648,400, much better than the original $1.5 million.

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Just over 1,200 players earned a payout and first place earned a nice prize of $242,479.65. when final table play began, nine players were left and online player grifo173 was in the lead with just over 15 million in chips.

It took about thirty minutes before anyone would go all in. the first to be eliminated would be AKSchwan and then twenty minutes later JBlaze20 would be eliminated in eighth on a bad beat. Nickj7777, moseley8, subby1, tobias fuke and Pokerpiggen would be the next to go which would put the tournament in heads up play.

Heads up play would begin between deoxyribo and grifo173, who would remain in the chip lead. It would not take long for the tournament to be decided, though both players did try to come to a deal but nothing looked attractive. On the final hand deoxyribo went all in with K-Q and was called by grifo173 who had A-10. The flop provided two Aces and it was all over with a ten on the turn. Deoxyribo was knocked out in second place and grifo173 earned the win.

Final Results:

1st place: grifo173 ($242,479.65)

2nd place: deoxyribo ($177,203.01)

3rd place: Pokerpiggen ($123,630.01)

4th place: tobias fuke ($82,420.01)

5th place: subby1 ($65,936.01)

6th place: moseley8 ($49,452.01)

7th place: nickj7777 ($32,968.01)

8th place: JBlaze20 ($18,132.41)

9th place: AKSchwan ($12,775.11)

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Just over one week ago PokerStars premiered their new poker television show called Million Dollar Challenge. The show airs on the FOX network on Sunday nights and viewers and poker pros on the show were stunned when Father Andrew Trapp, a South Carolina priest, managed to outlast every competitor to win the $100,000 first place prize.

Trapp made it past NBA Champion John Salley, Team PokerStars Pro Vanessa Rousso and PokerStars pro and four-time WSOP bracelet winner Daniel Negreanu to win the top prize. Trapp will now be able to return in December to compete for the $1 million grand prize.

Trapp is known as Father Rambo for his love of paintball and now will be remembered for his poker game. Trapp donated all of his $100,000 winnings to the St. Michael’s Church in Garden City, South Carolina where he is the associate pastor. Trapp’s goal is to win the million dollar grand prize and use that money to help St. Michael’s build a new church. The church is $1.5 million short of their goal so the $1 million would get the church to their goal a lot faster.

Last night Sergeant First Class Denny Luna competed on the new television show. Luna is a twenty year old Iraq war veteran and is currently serving as an operations NCO for the Army National Guard’s 2120th engineer company out of Oklahoma.

Luna’s first match up was against Jayde Nicole the 2008 Playboy Playmate of the year. Luna would be successful and beat Nicole, earning a $5,000 trip to the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure as well as moving on to the next round. In round two Luna faced Chris Moneymaker. Luna passed by Moneymaker and was asked if he wanted to proceed or take the $25,000 prize and he decided to take the money citing it would help his wife and children.

Next up from last night’s show would be Tracy Nguyen a student from Texas. Tracy would face Jerome Bettis former player for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Tracy would outlast Bettis and earn the PokerStars Caribbean trip and then face Barry Greenstein. Tracy would be unable to pass Greenstein and would walk away with her prize trip.

PokerStars.net Million Dollar Challenge still has three more Sundays to go so fans can still tune in to enjoy the action. The show airs following NFL coverage on FOX. The remaining shows will air on November 22nd, December 13th and December 27th.

The 2009 Poker Stars European Poker Tour London Main Event has ended and it was online qualifier Aaron Gustavson who walked away with the win. Gustavson was able to outlast the field of 730 players to earn the £850,000 first place prize.

The main event had a buy-in of £5,300 and Gustavson was one of 149 players who earned a seat via a PokerStars qualifier. Gustavson is only twenty three years old and commented on his win by stating: “I’m overwhelmed right now. The money is obviously amazing and having a title is amazing. It’s a dream come true.”

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When final table play began Gustavson was the chip leader but everyone was focused on Peter Eastgate who was close behind Gustavson in chips. The first few players to go would be Karim Bennani, Raymond Wu and Rui Milhomens. At this point Eastgate had earned a small chip lead but Gustavson would take out Dominic Cullen and Martin Gudvangen and Nikolai Senninger were knocked out which left Gustavson with a 2 to 1 chip lead over Eastgate when heads up play began between the two players.

After the dinner break the two came back to finish the main event. on the first hand Eastgate would see his chip stack reduced by half and then would be at a six to one disadvantage. It would be only six hands later that Eastgate would be eliminated from the competition. The final hand would see Eastgate go all in with A-9 and was called by Gustavson who held A-Q, which would give Gustavson the win.

Eastgate commented on his finish by stating: “I’m happy with the way I played getting to heads-up. Heads-up was very few hands, but until the last hand, I can’t fault myself for anything. I won a half million pounds, so you can’t really ask for much more than that.”

Final Results:

1. Aaron Gustavson - £850,000
2. Peter Eastgate - £530,000
3. Nikolai Senninger - £285,000
4. Martin Gudvangen - £227,000
5. Dominic Cullen - £173,000
6. Rui Milhomens - £124,000
7. Raymond Wu - £87,000
8. Karim Bennani - £50,100

The High Roller event of PokerStars European Poker Tour London has ended and seventy five players paid the GBP20, 000 buy-in to compete. After it was all said and done it was Matt Glantz of Pennsylvania who took home the first place prize.
Glantz first had to get past poker pro Erik Cajelais of Canada before he could claim the win. Cajelais started the day as the chip leader when final table play began and he looked good for the win, but Glantz would outplay the pro and take home the GBP 542,000 first place prize. The final hand would see Glantz’s A-2 hold up against Cajelais’ Q-J.

Glantz was able to outlast the rest of the final table players as well as other big names during the competition, which was quite impressive. Greg Raymer, Barry Greenstein, Bertrand Grospellier, Dave Ulliot, Chris Moneymaker, Tom Dwan, Phil Ivey, Dennis Phillips and Eugene Katchalov were just a few of the poker pros getting in on the action.

Glantz commented on the quality of players competing in the tournament by stating: “Probably, out of the top 100 tournament players in the world, 50 to 60 were in this tournament.” Glantz’s previous cash outs include fourth place at the 2008 WSOP $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. event. Glantz began playing poker in 2004 and is known for being a big player at the Bellagio and an avid poker blogger.

Final Table Results:

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1. Matt Glantz (United States) - £542,000
2. Erik Cajelais (Canada) - £326,000
3. Eugene Katchalov (United States) - £193,000
4. Adolfo Vaeza (Uruguay) - £141,000
5. Leo Fernandez (Argentina) - £104,000
6. Ilari Sahamies (Finland) - £74,000
7. Dennis Phillips (United States) - £60,000
8. Shane Reihill (Ireland) - £45,000