The 2021 PokerStars Michigan Championship of Online Poker (MICOOP) played host to short-handed, high-stakes action Wednesday night with Event #18: $500 NLHE [6-Max, High Roller]. Of the 131 entries, "Surge_Ibaka" was the one to claim the title and the accompanying top prize of $12,988.

A two-hour-and-40-minute registration period generated a total prize pool of $61,570, a number that eclipsed its $35K guarantee in just the fourth level of play on the night. Just under three hours after registration closed, "Surge_Ibaka" eliminated "sexycaitlyn" (3rd place) and "HeyLookItsTez" (2nd place) on back-to-back hands to emerge victorious.

Event #18 Final Table Results

Event Recap

There were 47 players already registered when the tournament began, a number that grew steadily to its total of 131 throughout the registration period. By the time registration ended, only around 35 players remained, and that number quickly dropped to 25 by the third break of the night. Twenty-five minutes later, the bubble burst when "freebrit" saw their pocket aces cracked by the pocket eights of MICOOP Event #1 champion "PowerRanges" after an eight appeared on the river, leaving the 19 remaining players all set to earn a payday of some sort.

"PowerRanges" was the chip leader through most of the tournament, but lost the majority of their chips to "sexycaitlyn" on the final table bubble after the latter spiked a set of nines on the river to crack the former's pocket jacks. They survived to the final table of seven, but were then eliminated on the first hand of play when they ran ace-ten suited into pocket aces.

Matthew "ProfitablePloof" Ploof was another short stack at the time, surviving a few all-in situations prior to the final table before his luck ran out moments later, taking sixth when his ace-six was unable to hold versus the queen-jack suited of "HeyLookItsTez".

Nearly four full levels of five-handed play then ensued before "Johnanthony55" lost with pocket nines to the ace-king of "sexycaitlyn" when a king came on the river, and they were followed by the exit of "barry20sanders" in fourth just a level later, also at the expense of "sexycaitlyn" who then took a commanding lead into three-handed play.

However, it was then time for "Surge_Ibaka" to shine. They found back-to-back doubles through "sexycaitlin" and eventually battled their way into the chip lead. "sexycaitlyn" then jammed king-five into the king-ten suited of "Surge_Ibaka" to bust in third, and one hand later, "Surge_Ibaka" open-jammed king-trey on the button and saw "HeyLookItsTez" call off their remaining chips with queen-jack. "HeyLookItsTez" failed to improve on the ten-high runout, and that was all she wrote.