partypoker US Network Players Choice Series (Dec.13-20)

The partypoker US Network Players Choice Series Event #2: $109 Heads-Up (64 Max) was as big of a success as it could have been Monday evening, filling to its capacity of 64 entries more than two hours prior to start of the tournament.

With a heads-up format, play started with 32 matches among 64 players, a number that would be halved six times before declaring a winner. Five hours after the tournament began, that winner was declared in "pay4medsch00l".

"pay4medsch00l" won their final heads-up match over "madroc" in 15 minutes of play, doing so after being the second of the two to win their semifinal match against "MegaWinner" in a back-and-forth battle that lasted for nearly 40 minutes.

Event #2 Results

Tournament Action

Mike "MistaMenza" Menzer was the first of 64 to find the rail after losing his first-round match to "UAUTCU", who won their second-round match against "Selurznug" before losing their third match to finish in 11th place ($208). "Selurznug" also had a first-round match of note, eliminating Borgata Ambassador Katie "KatieStone" Stone.

The second round began with 16 new matches, all of whose winners would make it into the money. However, players such as Vinny "brownmagic" Pahuja and Angel "chromeking" Lopez were among those to fall short. Eric "alwaysliquid" Vanauken also fell short after he was unable to beat "BigDickRick" to end the round, finishing the tournament in 17th place.

The 16 players that made it into the money quickly became eight, and that number even more quickly became four as Dan "mj23style" Sewnig fought his way into the final quarterfinal match, only to fall to to "BigDickRick" just like Vanauken two rounds earlier.

With the semifinals set, both matches took parallel routes that saw chips go back and forth. Eventually, "madroc" took a lead they would never relinquish over "BigDickRick" and quickly made it into the finals. "pay4medsch00l" also took a lead over "MegaWinner" that they would momentarily give up before regaining form and taking all the chips in the match, and 15 minutes later had done the same against "madroc" to make the results of both the match and the tournament official.

Blinds:300/600

"pay4medsch00l" pumped it up to 1,500 on the button and saw "madroc" three-bet to 4,200 in the big blind. "pay4medsch00l" called to bring a flop of on board. "madroc" checked to "pay4medsch00l", who bet 2,100, and then "madroc" check-raised to 6,000. "pay4medsch00l" called.

The turn came and "madroc" went all in for 24,000, just over the size of the pot. "pay4medsch00l" wasted no time calling.

"madroc":
"pay4medsch00l":

"madroc" saw the bad news after being called; they had one shot left at the three remaining kings in the deck and none fell as the river completed the runout to result in the pot being sent to "pay4medsch00l", who found themselves having accumulated all of the chips in their heads-up match for the sixth and final time of the tournament.

"madroc" fell just one win shy of "pay4medsch00l" and finished in second place as a result, earning $784 for their performance while "pay4medsch00l" has become the champion of Event #2 for $1,552. A full recap of the action will be provided shortly.

Player	Chips	Progress
pay4medsch00l	100,000	44,687
madroc	Busted

Blinds: 600/1,200

"pay4medsch00l" was on the button and completed to put action onto "MegaWinner" in the big blind, who raised to 4,200. "pay4medsch00l" called.

The flop fell and "MegaWinner" made a continuation-bet of 6,500. "pay4medsch00l" raised enough to put "MegaWinner" all in and they called.

"MegaWinner":
"pay4medsch00l":

Despite having the better hand at the moment, "MegaWinner" needed to fade diamonds and nines, and the turn did not do that. The river did re-improve them to a pair of kings, but it also gave "pay4medsch00l" a flush and made the result of the match official with "MegaWinner" taking third place in the tournament as a result.