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ZSC-54 Will Not Be Denied a Grand Victory - By Seth Shafer

Jul 30, 2008 The last weekend of the month meant that it was time for the latest edition of PokerRoom’s biggest tournament: the Grand XXVII. 818 players turned out for the three day event (which features two different starting days on Friday and Saturday, with survivors returning for the final day on Sunday), which meant that 1st place prize money would be a cool $174,234!

198 players made it through to Day 2 on Sunday, with the money spots kicking in at 90th place. Luckynights held the chip lead an hour into play, with ZSC-54 sitting atop the leaderboard at the two hour mark.

ZSC-54 kept his headlock on the top spot for the next three hours, leading the way for much of it and only dipping slightly to 2nd place on a few occasions. Here were the chip counts with just ten players left:

ZSC-54: 2,105,729
VKHOADO: 1,530,112
Metzmagny: 1,039,390
royal-dave: 727,182
xxTaLLxx: 675,838
Juffin26: 642,034
bigbalu67: 637,672
Crazy ......: 328,452
Meowa: 326,937
Juhlapekka: 166,654

Of particular note was bigbalu67, who was just in Las Vegas with Team PokerRoom at the 2008 Main Event. While his Main Event run ended on Day 2, he battled his way to a 7th place finish in Sunday’s Grand, collecting $16,360 for his efforts.

With the final table of six players finally set after a long, grueling day of poker, here’s how they stacked up:

Seat 2: ZSC-54 ($1,304,575 in chips)
Seat 4: royal-dave ($833,182 in chips)
Seat 5: metzmagny ($1,483,567 in chips)
Seat 8: Crazy ...... ($534,520 in chips)
Seat 9: VKHOADO ($2,183,950 in chips)
Seat 10: Juffin26 ($1,840,206 in chips)

Metzmagny would exit in 6th ($24,540) when he was short-stacked and forced to shove with Kc 5c, but ran into royal-dave’s As Kd.

Juffin26 was the next to go in 5th (34,356), and his was a painful exit. He and ZSC-54 got it all in pre-flop and with a 1.6 million chip pot up for grabs turned over their hands: Juffin26 with Ah Ks and ZSC-54 with Ac Qh.

The board came Td 3d 2h 5c and Juffin26 was likely already counting his chips when the Qs spiked on the river to knock him out and give another monster pot to ZSC-54.

Crazy ...... was the next ZSC-54 victim, finishing in 4th ($50,716) when ZSC-54’s turned two pair held up.

royal-dave bowed out in 3rd ($71,984) when his top pair fell victim to a harmless looking 2 on the river, which gave VKHOADO a set of 2s and a lock on the hand and a monster pot, setting up the heads-up battle with nearly $70,000 riding on the outcome (the difference between 1st and 2nd place money):

Seat 2: ZSC-54 ($2,930,527 in chips)
Seat 9: VKHOADO ($5,249,473 in chips)

VRHOADO chipped away at ZSC-54 but ZSC-54 got a huge double-up when each player rivered a straight and got it all in, except ZSC-54 held a higher straight (Ah Jc vs. 5d Jd on a board of Ts Ks 4d 9h Qc).

That hand evened up the stacks and the two players fought back and forth from there, with ZSC-54 finally pulling out to a slight lead when the final hand went down.

Each player looked down to find a pair, and all the chips found their way into the middle pre-flop. ZSC-54 had by far the best of it with Qd Qc vs. VKHOADO’s 6h 6c and the poker gods were content to let it end there, with the board blanking out and not improving either player’s hand.

That gave a hard-fought 1st place and $174,234 to ZSC-54, with VKHOADO collecting a not-too-shabby $106,340 for his runner-up finish. Congrats to the winners and for all the players that turned out for yet another successful edition of the Grand.

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