Sami Kelopuro Wins GG Spring Festival H-84: $25,500 Super High Roller ($574,878)
Another high roller has ended in the GG Spring Festival, and it's no surprise that another top pro has emerged as champion. This time, it was longtime nosebleed player Sami Kelopuro who topped the field of 99 entries to add $574,878 to his bankroll in H-84: $25,500 Super High Roller.
Kelopuro was simply on fire from the bubble onward. Even a final table with the likes of Mike Watson — who struck gold in a different GGSF event --, Isaac Haxton, Nick Petrangelo, and Benjamin Rolle couldn't stop him from taking over near the end as he amassed a stack that dwarfed all the other players combined by the time it got short-handed.
From there, it was a matter of who could ladder to second — it turned out to be Wei Zhao — as long as Kelopuro could fade anything completely crazy happening.
Official Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Country | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sami Kelopuro | Finland | $574,878 |
| 2 | Wei Zhao | China | $440,696 |
| 3 | Isaac Haxton | U.S.A. | $339,952 |
| 4 | Nick Petrangelo | U.S.A. | $262,076 |
| 5 | Matthias Eibinger | Austria | $202,040 |
| 6 | Benjamin Rolle | Germany | $155,575 |
| 7 | Thomas Muehloecker | Austria | $120,076 |
| 8 | Zhuang Ruan | Japan | $92,569 |
| 9 | Mike Watson | Canada | $71,363 |
While Kelopuro had the chip lead heading to the final table after Joao Vieira and Stephen Chidwick were among the few to make the money but fall before the final nine, it wasn't a prohibitive one. And it wasn't a knockout that would propel to take command.
Instead, an unusual hand developed where Kelopuro three-bet preflop and faced a four-bet from Haxton. Kelopuro peeled with the two players starting about 50 blinds deep. On the jack-high flop, Haxton went for a check-min-raise only to get shoved on and wind up tank-folding.
Armed with the lead again, Kelopuro ramped up the pressure and soon had more than half of the chips in play. He proceeded to bust Rolle and Matthias Eibinger to take 80 percent of the chips four-handed.
That sort of lead is tough to contend with, so while Zhao got the next two knockouts to give himself a fighting chance, it didn't take long before his thin value-shove with top pair ran into a rivered Kelopuro straight to end it.