Aleks Ponakovs Wins Debut Super MILLION$ Title for $475,000

The latest GGPoker GGPoker Super MILLION$ final table played out last night, with nine of poker’s finest in action at the virtual felt. With Kevin Martin joined by Julien Martini in the commentary box, stars such as Ole Schemion, Seth Davies, Elio Fox and Chris Klodnicki all made the final.

Going into play, it was the Hungarian Andras Nemeth who had the second biggest stack, but he was overcome heads-up by Aleks Ponakovs as the Latvian clinched a victory worth $475,125 from being down to just five big blinds at one point.

Reigning Champion First to Fall

Last week, it was South Korean player Sung Joo Hyun, also known as ‘ArtePokerTV’, who won the top prize of $487,000 and claimed the title of champion. This week, 235 entries made a massive prize pool once again, but it was Hyun himself who busted first, running short-stacked then busting with ace-seven against the ace-nine of Nemeth, and in doing so cashing for $59,390, which only adds to the more than $2.1 million he has won on GGPoker.

It hadn’t taken long for Hyun to hit the rail, but over an hour passed in the final before he was joined there by another player. Seth Davies moved all-in with ace-deuce but couldn’t topple Nemeth’s pocket kings which held to see the Canadian bust for $77,020 in eighth place.

Losing out in seventh was another massive name as German crusher Ole Schemion ran out of luck just a couple of hands later. Again it was Nemeth who took the pot with a pair as pocket nines held against Schemion’s ace-queen to bring the field down to six and send Schemion home with $99,882.

Ponakovs Makes His Move

At the start of six-handed play, Latvian player Aleks Ponakovs had one of the shallowest stacks, but he was quick to improve it over the next level of play, during which time another player bit the dust. Elio Fox chopped the GGPoker Sunday Million only 10 days ago with Stephen Chidwick, but his ace-king of clubs lost out to the aggressive and ill-timed shove from Brazilian player Rodrigo Selouan with ace-four.

An ace and a four arrived on the flop, but two clubs were there too. With 7.5 million chips and the overall lead up for grabs, Selouan faded two clubs and counterfeit pairs. Holding over 8 million chips with everyone else only having between 3 million and 4 million, the Brazilian was unable to hold on for the win, however.

Fox’s bust-out in sixth had earned him $129,532, but it was some time before another fell in fifth. Eventually, the other Brazilian player at the table, Tauan Navas, busted for the payout of $167,982, his ace-jack of spades unable to overcome another Nemeth top pair, with his pocket fives holding and giving him the chip lead.

With four players remaining, no-one wanted to miss out on the podium, but that was exactly what happened to Chris Klodnicki. The American lost his stack in fourth for $217,846 when his final 11 big blinds went into the middle with ace-five and was shot down by Nemeth’s ace-king.

Andras Nemeth Near-Misses

“Aleks was way better during the heads-up.”

Three players were left in the hunt, but Brazilian Rodrigo Selouan could not recover from being short-stack and busted in third for $282,511. His call for his tournament life with ace-queen was wrong against the shove of Ponakovs with ace-king, and the paint-free board saw him crash out for a result worth $282,511.

With just the final two still fighting for the table, Ponakovs had a slim led, but there wasn’t a three-bet between the two men. The Latvian led and ground his opponent down to just a tenth of his stack by the time Nemeth shoved the final hand with queen-six. Ponakovs called with pocket threes and the board saw him survive the run-out to claim the $475,125 top prize.

Nemeth, having won so many all-ins during the final table, missed out on the top prize, cashing for $366,372 in second place, unable to win what would have been a third Super MILLION$ title. Ponakovs, who made back-to-back final table appearances when he got tot the final, won his debut title in the event series, and having sold 20% of his action on GGPoker, many of his supporters will have been delighted with his victory for financial as well as fan reasons .

“Aleks was way better during the heads-up.” Julien Martini said after the battle after he and main host Kevin Martin broke down the action afterwards. The host agreed, and said that “The short stacks played very well.” In crediting all the players.

While so much of the poker world’s attention is on this week’s debut episode of Season 9 of High Stakes Poker, it’s great to know that the Super MILLION$ event series is going nowhere and continues with some great drama at the felt.