2020 GGPoker High Rollers Week

HRW 03: $10,300 PLO High Roller, $1M GTD
Day: 1
Event Info

2020 GGPoker High Rollers Week

Final Results
Winner
Aku Joentausta
Winning Hand
k7k2
Prize
$271,790
Event Info
Buy-in
$10,300
Prize Pool
$1,240,000
Entries
124
Level Info
Level
33
Blinds
70,000 / 140,000
Ante
0
Players Info - Day 1
Entries
124
Players Left
1

Aku Joentausta Wins HRW 03: $10,300 PLO High Roller, $1M GTD ($271,790)

Level 33 : 70,000/140,000, 0 ante
Aku Joentausta
Aku Joentausta

HRW 03: $10,300 PLO High Roller, part of High Roller Week on GGPoker, came to a fitting end on Sunday night as Aku Joentausta, a regular at high-stakes PLO cash games on the site found himself the last player standing.

For getting through a field of 124 entries in the single-day, event, he claimed a reward of $271,790. The Finnish player had to get through the likes of Isaac Haxton, Leonid Yanovski and Ronny Kaiser at the final table, where he came in as the second-biggest stack after Lauri "KarilleMeni" Varonen.

Joentausta has about $1.2 million in live cashes but is most active online. In addition to his cash game exploits, he's a participant in high-stakes tournaments and cashed four times in the bracelet events on GGPoker this summer.

Official Final Table Results

PlacePlayerCountryPrize
1Aku JoentaustaFinland$271,790
2Andriy "smbcall911" LyubovetskiyUkraine$206,747
3Isaac HaxtonU.S.A.$157,269
4Shyngis SatubayevKazakhstan$110,633
5Ronny KaiserSwitzerland$91,003
6Leonid YanovskiIsrael$69,224
7Lauri "KarilleMeni" VaronenFinland$52,658
8"WaterLover"Canada$40,056
9Adam HendrixU.S.A.$30,470

For much of the day, the story was the dominance of Varonen, who had a monstrous lead of about three-times the next stack for hours on end.

That amazing run looked likely continue when he got in as a favorite with aces in a three-bet pot early at the final table. He was fading a flopped flush draw on a paired board, and a hold would mean having 40% of the chips eight-handed. However, Canadian account "WaterLover" managed to hit a spade on the river and make it anyone's game.

Such was the topsy-turvy nature of the endgame that Andriy "smbcall911" Lyubovetskiy, who came into the final nine as the shortest stack with less than 10 big blinds, actually took the chip lead without anyone going bust.

However, Joentausta asserted himself with a big calldown against WaterLover holding top pair of aces on a paired board where WaterLover raised preflop and blasted off with air to go out eighth and leave Joentausta in the lead.

It was a lead Joentausta wouldn't relinquish until heads-up play, after he'd made another big bluff-catch against Haxton, who failed to muscle him off top pair of aces on a paired board again, though Joentausta did river a backdoor flush as well.

Lyubovetskiy did manage to grab the lead after he got lucky all in on the turn as an underdog, but a few hands later, Joentausta closed him out after taking back-to-back three-bet pots, the second sealing the deal when kings and a flush draw held against a pair of queens and a gutshot.