Time to Crown an Arena Champion
After three days of play, it's finally time to decide a winner in EPT Online 01: $1,050 NLHE [Arena Championship]. Part of the first ever 2020 PokerStars EPT Online, the Arena Championship was guaranteed to have a prize pool of $1.5 million, but after the dust cleared, nearly 2,500 entries swelled that pool to $2,426,000. That put $356,769 up top for the winner, and means that all the players returning for Day 4 action are now guaranteed at least $23,784 for their efforts. Swedish player Daniel “Kihlström” Kihlström is the person with all the chips. He's the only one with over 100 million, and has almost twice as many chips as the next closest stack.
With 30 minute blind levels, this four-day event has given players time to try to build a stack. When Day 1 was over, fewer than 700 players bagged a stack for Day 2, but registration was still open. Day 2 started with more than 800 players, as more than 200 players elected to buy a Day 2 stack worth just over 20BB. They played down to 71 remaining on Day 2 in about eight hours, then on Day 3, they took around seven hours to play down to nine players left.
| Seat | Player | Country | Chips |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | smoothieg | Canada | 21,534,557 |
| 2 | ImTheNuts1 | Poland | 59,889,077 |
| 3 | Jeiko "JEIK0" Palma | Panama | 74,096,435 |
| 4 | Daniel “Kihlström” Kihlström | Sweden | 170,012,665 |
| 5 | Guilherme "Guizãoo_" Carmo | Brazil | 44,202,079 |
| 6 | Andrey "drupa-lucker" Chernokoz | Russian Federation | 39,268,132 |
| 7 | Gustavo “MachadinhaRS” Rocha | Brazil | 71,347,493 |
| 8 | Audrius "Stakelis24" Stakelis | Lithuania | 38,905,165 |
| 9 | DON JOHAN | Norway | 87,244,397 |
Action gets underway at 1:05 eastern, and they won't stop dealing until one player has all the chips. You can follow along here on PokerNews, or catch the action on Twitch on the PokerStars Twitch channel.
on the flop, and Kihlström check-called for 4.2M. They both checked the 
turn, but after a check, "ImTheNuts1" bet 14.4M into the pot of just over 18M. Kihlström tank-called, then mucked when "ImTheNuts1" rolled over 
for the rivered flush.
turn, and "ImTheNuts1" check-folded to a bet of more than 17M on the 
river.
