Do not confuse this tournament as a turbo as the Zoom name may imply. In fact after the 120 minute late registration both the Sunday Warm-Up (started just two hours earlier) and this tournament had 21% of the field remaining. Yes, only 2,526 players being whisked away to another table after folding or playing a hand remained after 11,950 rounders plunked down $109 for this $1 million special edition ZOOM tournament as part of the 100 billionth hand celebration. As the start tournament went quickly, so did the ending but not due to the blinds. Dejan "dejanaceking" Divkovic simply rolled over the final seven players to claim the hefty $166,224.50 first place prize.
Normally we can watch the action unfold and report on the unfortunate bust outs but Zoom poker makes that a little difficult. Moving from table to table after each hand makes chronicling the tournament a bit difficult as the players are cloaked in the ZOOM arena until the final 27 players assured a minimum of $2,390.00 stand tall. At the seventh hourly break 28 players still in the Zoom portion of the tournament got a five break to think about the change in structure.
With three tables remaining the veil was lifted to see how our players would do in a regular tournament without all the bouncing around after each hand. Thanks to the slowly rising 10 minute blinds the final 27 had plenty of play left as it would take over two hours to reach the final table.
Players like 2012 SCOOP champ (Event #8-M) sandman201 would have a shot at the huge $166,224.50 first prize after making it down to the last two tables. Unfortunately for sandman201, a move in the big blind against Narcisus90 turned out in the opponent's favor ending the SCOOP champ's tournament in 17th place ($2,629.00).
Another SCOOP champ was able to navigate the ZOOM structure and make the final two tables. SCOOP 2013 Event #21-L champ OptionNz ran low in chips 15 minutes into the eight hour of play as petrovks would knock the German out of the tournament in 15th place ($3,824.00).
Down to hand-for-hand play with the blinds at 40K/80K ante 10K den dimiiii would attempt to four-bet shove for 2.28 million and collect some free chips from silvirenzo. But there was little chance that silvirenzo was folding pocket kings [Kh][Kd]. den dimiiii's [Qd][Ac] had nothing to connect with on the all-low [7h] [4s] [5d] [7s] [4h] board finishing in 10th place ($5,019.00) and starting up the final table below:
Seat 1: Pumpingpoker (865869 in chips)
Seat 2: silvirenzo (4846509 in chips)
Seat 3: dejanaceking (7696238 in chips)
Seat 4: Klaus-tro-fo (5985022 in chips)
Seat 5: malinga (3712148 in chips)
Seat 6: Vegeta14200 (3798115 in chips)
Seat 7: currie7 (672571 in chips)
Seat 8: Sobizzle21 (5273916 in chips)
Seat 9: därenas (2999612 in chips)
Fast start to the ZOOM final table
With a first prize of $166K, nearly doubling the recently finished Sunday Warm-Up and slowly rising blind structure the player could afford to be a little cautious. With the blinds at 40K/80K ante 10K however, därenas did not mess around holding big slick [Kh][Ah] in the cutoff and open shoved for 2.8 million. Normally would get people to fold quickly but
Klaus-tro-fo holding pocket aces [Ad][As] could not wait to call from the big blind. No miracle turnaround on the [6c] [4h] [Th] [4c] [3d] board and därenas claimed ninth place ($7,528.50).
Back-to-back eliminations courtesy of dejanaceking
With several big final tables under Dejan "dejanaceking" Divkovic belt, such as the recent SCOOP 2013's Event #6-H taking sixth for $4,180.00 he may know a thing or two about how to win. Just three hands after därenas was eliminated the shortstacked currie7 tried to pushed a microstack of 452,571 chips from the big blind over Divkovic's min-raise but was called by [3d][As]. This was actually a good thing at the moment as currie7 held a slightly better kicker [5d][Ac]. But, a trey on the turn [4s] [7c] [Ad] [3h] [9s] proved to be the end of the road for currie7 finishing in eighth place ($11,950.00).
On the next hand Dejan and malinga would play for slightly larger stakes as 9.2 million chips ended up in the middle after the turn card revealed an ace [9c] [5h] [8d] [As]. Watch the video below for the results:
The flopped set [9d][9s] of Dejan pinned down the turned top pair [Jh][Ac] of the drawing dead malinga who claimed $23,900.00 in seventh place.
No pair necessary
Moving up to the 60K/120K ante 15K blind level with Dejan "dejanaceking" Divkovic firmly in the chip lead with nearly half the chips in play, Divkovic would open for a min-raise from the button as Vegata14200 shoved all-in for 1.96 million from the big blind. Holding [Qh][As] and over 17 million chips, Dejan had no problem making the call. The dominated [Ac][Jc] of Vegeta14200 received no help on the club-less [3s] [8d] [2s] [Th] [Kh] board earning $35,850.00 in sixth place.
Clean sweep?
Divkovic has already tasted near victory in a Sunday Major tournament after taking the runner-up funds from January's Sunday Warm-up for $83K. Knocking out seventh and eighth place in consecutive hands seemed like too much work so watch the hand below as Divkovic decides to KO two players in one hand:
After the blinds moved up to 70K/140K ante 17.5K silvirenzo shoved from the cutoff with pocket deuces [2d][2c] as dejanaceking called from the button holding [Ac][Jd] and Sobizzle21 called for less than both player in the big blind with pocket jacks [Jc][Jh]. The [Tc] [9c] [Qs] [6d] [Ks] shot out a straight for Sobizzle21, and a larger one for Dejan as he eliminated both Sobizzle21 (fifth place - $47,800.00) and silvirenzo (fourth place - $59,750.00) both in the same hand.
All chips lead to Dejan's chip rack
After the double elimination hand, Dejan and Pumpingpoker tried to reason with Klaus-tro-fo to make a deal. But, the German took one look at the chip stacks that heavily favored Dejan and figured no chop of the final three places would suffice as play moved on to the 100K/200K ante 25K level. After Dejan built his chip lead to 26.7 million, Pumpingpoker and Klaus-tro-fo tried to combine their stacks with a 7.9 million chip preflop coin flip. Pumpingpoker's [Td][Ah] would take down Klaus-tro-fo's pocket eights [8h][8c]. Then on the next hand Klaus-tro-fo called a bully shove from Dejan holding [Th][9h] and only 1.18 million chips left. Dejan's [5h][Kh] found two more kings on the [6h] [Ks] [7d] [Qc] [Kc] board to eliminate Klaus-tro-fo in third place ($83,650.00).
Dejan "dejanaceking" Divkovic wins the special edition ZOOM tournament
Starting with nearly a 4:1 chip advantage and miles of momentum, Dejan "dejanaceking" Divkovic seemed destined to take that first place prize that eluded him in January. With the blinds still at 100K/200K ante 25K and holding a 28.9 million to 6.89 million chip lead all of Pumpingpoker's tournament funds went into the pot preflop holding [Ad][8h]. Dejan had no problem making a similar commitment with pocket queens [Qh][Qc]. Both players would hit straights on the [Td] [Jd] [9h] [Ks] [7c] but Dejan "dejanaceking" Divkovic's king-high straight would earn him a cool $166,224.50 for the 100 Billionth Hand special promotion $1M guarantee ZOOM poker tournament victory!
PokerStars $1 Million guarantee ZOOM poker 100 Billionth Hand promotion results (06-23-13)
Players entered: 11,950
Places paid: 1,530
Prizepool: $1,195,000.00
1. Dejan "dejanaceking" Divkovic $166,224.50
2. Pumpingpoker (Russia) $119,500.00
3. Klaus-tro-fo (Germany) $83,650.00
4. silvirenzo (United Kingdom) $59,750.00
5. Sobizzle21 (Mexico) $47,800.00
6. Vegeta14200 (Greece) $35,850.00
7. malinga (Norway) $23,900.00
8. currie7 (United Kingdom) $11,950.00
9. därenas (Lithuania) $7,528.50
David Aydt is a freelance contributor