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EPT12 Malta: The stalling debate once again, high roller edition

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Dan Smith: Reigniting the stalling debate

I think we may have reached a watershed moment in live poker tournaments, and I suspect many people will say they had seen it coming.

It now appears that it's pretty much accepted for players to stall (ie, slow the action deliberately) when approaching a major bubble. It may even now be considered a legitimate, optimal tactic.

Here in Malta, with 20 players remaining in the single-day €10,000 High Roller tournament, play on at least one table had slowed to a crawl. Seventeen were due to be paid, with a min-cash at slightly more than €20,000, and nobody was prepared to miss out.

There's no way to dodge the issue and keep this anonymous: the principal culprit was Dan Smith. Nobody is ever going to claim Smith is some kind of angle-shooter, but nor is he a newbie. He has nearly $10 million in recorded live tournament winnings and he knows the rules, both those written the rule book and those that are unsaid.

Yet it's also fair to say that every time Smith was dealt cards and action moved to him, he would peek at them, glance at the tournament clock, fiddle with his chips for a loooong period, glance at the tournament clock, fiddle with his chips, and then slowly fold (unless an opponent called the clock on him first).


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It was beginning to get under the skin of Christopher Frank, among others, who had a big stack at that table. But Isaac Haxton, who was also there, was not alone in seeming to understand that what Smith was doing probably made a lot of sense.

(I must add here that there may have been others doing the same thing on other tables. I was only watching Smith's table.)

As you might expect, the mutterings of discontent grew gradually louder until the point that a couple of the players asked the floor-man whether they could play hand-for-hand. It's the only sure-fire way of levelling the playing field across three tables, but tournament staff don't often like to change a published schedule, so the floor-man had to refer the request up the chain of command.

The floor-man paused the tournament clock while a phone call was made that brought the TD duo of Nick O'Hara and Luca Vivaldi to the table. After hearing the gist of the complaints and requests from the floor-man, O'Hara and Vivaldi conferred.

"Meanwhile, can we get a clock over here please?" Frank said, noting that Smith still had his cards.

Smith folded, at which point Haxton observed, "Given you continued to tank even after the clock was paused, I'm guessing it was a real decision."

As O'Hara and Vivaldi discussed their strategy for dealing with this, Haxton and Smith were joined with another of the floor staff in running through the options for action in this kind of circumstance.

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Isaac Haxton, mediator

Smith was prominent in the discussions and was the first person to bring up one oft-suggested solution: that the cards of a serial staller are put to one side for a tournament official to look at, who can then judge whether the "decision" being pondered was legitimate. If it was deemed to be frivolous, the staller is given a penalty.

But Haxton was among those to air a pretty legitimate problem with this solution. In short, who can really say whether someone was properly thinking about making a move, rather than cynically winding a clock down?

"How tilting would it be if you were in some real horrible spot that the table didn't understand?" Haxton said, to general agreement.

"I like the idea of it, but it's difficult," the floor-man said.

Frank interjected too. "You would have to treat pros and other players differently," he said.

"Unless you're closing the action and you've some horrible hand that you're never going to call with," Smith said, describing perhaps the only time when a judgment of this kind would be straightforward.

He then offered his services to the tournament staff. "If ever I'm not in a tournament and you need someone to judge these things..." Smith said.

O'Hara and Vivaldi had decided what they were going to do and it fell to O'Hara to spell things out to all three tables. He said that they had had a request to put the tournament hand-for-hand and wanted to know what the general opinion was among the players.

Jason Mercier was first to answer. "I think it's the most fair," Mercier said.

Jason Wheeler added, "There was already stalling starting."

Haxton then suggested they should ask if anybody had any objections, but Vivaldi observed that it would be pretty difficult for someone to pipe up if they knew the weight of opinion was against them.

Mercier responded: "If someone says that they didn't want to go hand-for-hand, it's because they are stalling."

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Jason Mercier: €10K (in)action

But Vivaldi said it wasn't necessarily the case, and proposed that they could work some kind of anonymous vote if that was easier.

Smith suddenly piped up: "If we're voting, who wants a 20-way chop?" He raised his hand in the air.

It was quickly decided, given that nobody could either come up with a better solution, or raise any significant objection, that they would indeed go hand-for-hand.

The strategy worked because they were quickly down to the bubble proper, with Smith among those to perish. Juha Helppi, yesterday's runner up in the €25,000 High Roller, then became the stone bubble.

That was just about a standard way to get into the money, regardless of buy-in, structure or stalling. But I wonder whether the general sense of acceptance and the pervading tolerance of the stalling signals something more significant.

Is stalling now genuinely a legitimate part of the game? I've always watched the high roller events to determine new trends, which then gradually spread across the full gamut of tournament play. There's nothing new in stalling, of course, but I've never before seen it by so prominent a player, nor being so widely accepted.

Who knows. But maybe shot clocks and the like aren't exactly too far away after all.

Everything about EPT Malta is on the main EPT Malta page. More specifically, all the hand-by-hand coverage of the €25,000 High Roller is on the €25,000 High Roller page and everything from the IPT Main Event is on the IPT Main Event page.

No really, begin plotting your own bid for EPT glory by downloading the PokerStars client and having a crack. Follow this EPT event via the EPT app. There you will get all the latest news, chip counts and payouts. You can download it on Android or IOS



It happened so quick! Spin & Go anniversary makes another millionaire

There's this wonderful scene in the film Casino in which a slot jackpot gets paid out three times in the matter of twenty minutes. Ace Rothstein, played to a tee by Robert De Niro, loses his mind when a cowboy slots manager doesn't call him to let him know.

"Well, it happened so quick!" the cowboy protests. "Three guys won. I didn't have a chance to call you!"

That's sort of how we feel here at the PokerStars Blog. Why? Because in the span of less than six days, we've been struggling to keep up with the million-dollar Spin & Go jackpots.

To wit: if blogs had ink, the ink wouldn't even be dry on the third million-dollar report we published. We just finished writing it about this morning...and another jackpot just happened...the fourth in six days.


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Minutes ago, Estonia's barrakuuda4 won $1 million in a $100 Spin & Go after defeating Hungary's minargyuri and the Czech Republic's KvicKiller, both of whom got $100,000 consolation prizes.

The heads-up battle was a tense sweat. With more than 2,600 people watching and the stacks nearly even, barrakuuda4 pushed all-in with pocket fours and minargyuri called with [ah][th].

Imagine that...essentially flipping for $900,000.

This is what happened.

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It took just one hand after that, and barrakuuda4 became a millionaire.

How did the rest of the million-dollar wins happen? Well, fortunately we've been able to (barely) keep up.

Samara Lúcio spends $5, wins a million

wrawras gets another $1 million for Brazil

prophethicks turns $5 into $1 million

Now, if you have seen Casino, you know Rothstein fired that cowboy on the spot for not reporting the craziness.

We will now hit publish, as content as we can be that we have reported the insanity as quickly as possible.

Congrats to PokerStars' newest millionaire, Estonia's barrakuuda4!


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is the PokerStars Head of Blogging.



EPT12 Malta: Paddling and hitting rivers with Lucas Greenwood

Just looking at Lucas Greenwood makes you think you should maybe hike more, or climb a mountain from time to time. Or at the very least stop eating chocolate biscuits for lunch and get something made from fruit at the Juice stall downstairs.

You sense from Greenwood, twin brother of Sam currently playing the single-day high roller, that the indoors is not his natural environment. He should be swimming in a lake somewhere or starting a camp fire. From time to time he steps up and stands behind his chair in shorts and old tennis shoes. Short of a cliff to scale or river to ford, he stretches his arms up, or stands on tip-toes.

Greenwood though is known for his love of the outdoors. "He's a Himalayan retreat kind of guy," his father Howard said at the PCA two season ago (where Lucas and his brothers Sam and Max went deep).


lucas_greenwood_ept12malta_26oct15.jpgLucas Greenwood

It started when he was younger, working at Camp Kilcoo in Haliburton, northern Ontario, an area of the world you could only describe as proper wilderness. There Greenwood paddled a canoe into a permanent love of the outdoors. It shows a little in the bulging arms, and the beard too.

So did he tear himself away from a wooden hut in the middle of nowhere to fly to Malta? Not exactly. Working in a camp as a young (younger) man is one thing. Juggling the demands of real life make things a little more complicated.

"I haven't been in a while," admitted Greenwood. "It's hard to plan it and set aside a week when you can do it. I'd like to do it in the future, but I've been lazy!"

Looking at it though, it seemed odd that a man more comfortable paddling a canoe along one of Ontario's rivers, or hiking across untouched wilderness, would develop a passion for a game that in essence involves sitting in a windowless room for extended periods of time.

"I suppose, to be honest, I like playing poker, but if you spend enough time in here you get sick of it," he said, with the family grin on his face. "It's different. Poker is more mentality stimulating I guess, and I appreciate the competitive aspect of it. But actually, you know, there are long days. It is a grind. This last hour or two I played four or five hands.

"But I'm pretty comfortable with both. It's actually nice to have the balance there, between the two different things."

None of which means he can sit still.

"Honestly, I'm just a pretty restless person! When I'm sitting down for a long periods of time I just sort of get bored, especially when I notice a pot's going on between other people that will take a while, so I get up. I'm stuck in that chair all day so I need to do something."

So for now the wilderness of an EPT tournament room will just have to do. Meanwhile we'll go easy on the chocolate biscuits.

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Stephen Bartley is a staff writer for the PokerStars Blog.



The Harrington Factor

One would guess it's safe to say that if a poker players' accomplishments include winning the World Series of Poker Main Event, having one World Poker Tour and two WSOP bracelets to his name, not to mention over six million dollars in lifetime tournament cashes, that this player knows a thing or two about playing poker. It's a no-brainer right? Well, that's the story of Dan Harrington.

And it doesn't stop there, 'Action Dan' as he's affectionately known is also a member of the Poker Hall of Fame and is the author of many best-selling books including the infamous 'Harrington on Hold'em' Volumes 1 through 3.
So why is PokerSchoolOnline getting so excited about this right now? Well, as a poker school we want to share with new players and beginners as much information as we can about improving your poker game and this week we are doing that by sharing a very useful tool and concept for tournament players called the 'M Calculator' devised by none-other than Dan Harrington.

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What is the 'M Calculator'?

The concept of the M Calculator was brought to the poker world in volume two of the 'Harrington on Hold'em' series. As players will learn in a poker tournament there are different stages including early, middle, and late stages and all good players will switch gears during these stages depending on what stack-size they have remaining as the blinds and antes begin to eat into their stack-size. The M Calculator allows a player to see exactly which 'zone' they are in during a tournament and offers a guide as to the optimal strategy for that scenario.

In essence it will estimate how many orbits around the table a player can last without risking any chips, apart from forced blinds and antes. PokerSchoolOnline has made this poker tool available to players on their website and we recommended you check it out. It's an excellent learning tool and you'll have hours of fun punching in the numbers to see if you made the correct action while analysing those tournament hands that you've played on PokerStars.

PokerSchoolOnline is the official PokerStars poker school. New to Poker? Check out our amazing Poker Tutorial game here.




EPT12 Malta: Live Spin & Go hits its first jackpot!

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Roll up, roll up for the Spin and Go wheel

We've had some alerts through the years on the European Poker Tour: the occasional fire alarm, a tsunami warning in the Bahamas and that afternoon in Berlin. But an alarm just sounded around Casino Portomaso in Malta that was unlike anything we have heard before.

By rights, it should have been a siren howling and a red light flashing across the entire complex, the kind I imagined signalled an escape from Colditz. But as it was, it was actually Tid Sinclair, the EPT events manager extraordinaire, scampering into the press room and saying, "The €1,000 has hit!"

Sinclair was the early warning alarm system for the fact that the Spin & Go wheel installed here in Malta, in front of which a succession of players have been playing live-action versions of the popular online game, had landed on its jackpot segment for the first time in the week.

Three players were now sitting down to play a €50 tournament with a €1,000, winner-takes-all first prize. It wasn't quite the million dollar riches of the online equivalent, but was nothing to be sniffed at.

Our line-up in search of the top prize was Rick Bijkerk, from the Netherlands, Sergii Gondaruk, from Ukraine, and Kristiyan Trchyu, from Bulgaria, and they duly got on with the hyper-turbo (five minute levels) event that would decide the first Spin & Go jackpot winner of the week.

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The line-up for the jackpot Spin & Go

It wasn't to be Bijkerk. He bluffed all in on a board of [9s][kc][5h] holding only [qc][8s]. Of course, he wasn't to know that Gondaruk had [ks][9c]. Bijkerk was out.

Gondaruk was the big chip leader heads up, but Trchyu doubled quickly when his [qd][8h] held up in an all-in, pre-flop coup against [jc][8c]. (Just remember, there's not a whole lot of skill to all this.)

That left Gondaruk short-stacked, and he too got his chips in moments later with [jc][9s]. Trchyu called with [ac][4s] and the board ran [8d][2c][3h][kh][Th], sending the grand back to Bulgaria with Trchyu.

The players waiting on the side-lines for their chance at the big time pointed towards the big wheel and suggested to the tournament officials that, "You don't need to spin it. It's OK."

But the administrator of the Spin and Go section said, "I hope it doesn't come up again. I'll be fired."

She then set the wheel of fortune back in motion and watched as it landed back on €100. One jackpot per hour is about enough.

Congratulations to Trchyu, the first live Spin-and-Go champion!

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Kristiyan Trchyu: Spin & Go Pro

Everything about EPT Malta is on the main EPT Malta page. More specifically, all the hand-by-hand coverage of the €25,000 High Roller is on the €25,000 High Roller page and everything from the IPT Main Event is on the IPT Main Event page.

No really, begin plotting your own bid for EPT glory by downloading the PokerStars client and having a crack. Follow this EPT event via the EPT app. There you will get all the latest news, chip counts and payouts. You can download it on Android or IOS



EPT12 Malta: Another title for Poker Mama

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Jackie Cachia: Champion on home soil

There's no denying it, the EPT Malta festival is now in full swing, with more than 30 tournaments completed and another 40 or so to come. The Main Event, of course, is hogging most of the attention today, alongside the one-day €10,000 High Roller, but here's a quick rundown on what else has been going on.

As noted earlier, Darrell Goh completed late night triumph in the €2,000 IPT High Roller and it was notable that it wasn't even the last tournament to finish last night.

The seniors' event, for players aged 50 and older, was still about six handed when the IPT wrapped, but they still finished it off in a single day. When all was said and done it was arguably Maltese poker's most recognisable figure, Jackie "Poker Mama" Cachia, who had the skill and stamina to close it out.

Cachia has a women's event title already on the EPT, won in London in October last year, but this was was sweeter still, coming on home soil. Cachia thought she had been eliminated shortly before the money when she was all in with pocket tens against ace-king and a king appeared on the flop.

But despite having wrapped her knuckles on the table and left her seat, Cachia was called back by a ten on the river. She never left it again until she was victorious and €5,300 richer.

As Mad Harper, the EPT Media Coordinator noted, that is precisely the buy in for the Main Event, and Cachia has duly reinvested. She is in the Day 1B field today.

Leo Pietila also hoisted a trophy aloft yesterday, triumphing in the €1,000 Big Ante event and winning €22,140. This is clearly Pietila's format. The 26-year-old from Finland also won a Big Ante event in Prague last season, and was last seen protesting with Neil Johnson that big antes should be brought in to all EPT Main Events and High Rollers. (Not true. But it could be.)

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Leo Pietila: One for each title

In the other late-finishing event last night/this morning, Greece's Stavros Karyofyllis won the €500 Dealer's Choice. As with the Brits who stayed to rail Goh at his final table, a hardy band of Greeks stuck it out to drape Karyofyllis in the nation's flag, even as the clock ticked past 3am.

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Stavros Karyofylis: Greek, in case you didn't notice

Everything about EPT Malta is on the main EPT Malta page. More specifically, all the hand-by-hand coverage of the €25,000 High Roller is on the €25,000 High Roller page and everything from the IPT Main Event is on the IPT Main Event page.

No really, begin plotting your own bid for EPT glory by downloading the PokerStars client and having a crack. Follow this EPT event via the EPT app. There you will get all the latest news, chip counts and payouts. You can download it on Android or IOS



Sunday Million: ARTtimeSHOW sketches out a win, banks over $150k after three-way deal

Adding up the collective MTT earnings at this week's Sunday Million final table will (a) give you a headache and (b) cause serious bankroll envy. Two of them (GadMO and dennishtm) already made the final table of the Million within the last 18 months. Another (krasark) won the Sunday Rebuy just last week. And Russia's Nopaleva made headlines last month when he parlayed a 25,000 FPP satellite entry into a buy-in for the WCOOP $51,000 Super High Roller event, where he finished fourth for $230,000. Walking among these giants tonight was ARTtimeSHOW, who was sitting on an average stack until he scored back to back knockouts and took the chip lead. ARTtimeSHOW maintained that lead all the way to three-handed play, where a deal was struck. ARTtimeSHOW went on to end krasark's run in third place, before putting away Nopaleva in a two-hand heads-up battle en route to his first Sunday Million title.

In a small uptick from last week, tonight's Million drew 5,704 players and the prize pool topped out at $1,140,800.00. 810 places were paid with the champion set to earn $178,423.55.

Blinds were up to 125,000/250,000 with ten players remaining and moehammer1 was still hanging on with 4.5 big blinds. When Nopaleva opened for 500,000 from UTG, moehammer1 found two red tens and moved in for 1.13 million from the big blind. Nopaleva called with [3h][4c]. However, the [Ac][6c][3c] flop couldn't have been worse for our short stack as Nopaleva picked up a flush draw. The [5c] turn filled it and moehammer1 departed in tenth place, sending the remaining nine to the final table.

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Final table chip counts

Seat 1: GadMO (9,790,021 in chips)
Seat 2: ARTtimeSHOW (5,954,839 in chips)
Seat 3: krasark (5,095,868 in chips)
Seat 4: Nopaleva (10,513,618 in chips)
Seat 5: dennishtm (3,066,720 in chips)
Seat 6: Wildace_hun (12,610,456 in chips)
Seat 7: Sly-Snitch (571,672 in chips)
Seat 8: Saitek00 (1,143,439 in chips)
Seat 9: gilleschro (8,293,367 in chips)

Saitek00 got off to a strong start at the final table, doubling up twice in the first six hands. First, his pocket sixes held up against Nopaleva's [As][Jh] and four hands later, he turned a set of sixes against gileschro's [Ah][Kh] to move up to 6.2 million in chips. Sly-Snitch, however, was not as fortunate. On Hand #7, Sly-Snitch was all-in for less from the small blind and krasark led off the action with a shove for 3.25 million from middle position with [Qs][Ts]. Sly-Snitch's [4c][6h] hit a gutshot straight draw on the [3h][3c][7d] flop, but missed when the [Ad] turned. The river was the [Qc] and krasark tood down the pot with queens and threes while Sly-Snitch hit the rail in ninth place.

Gilleschro picked up a monster hand at the perfect time. The action folded to Saitek00 on the button and he moved in for 7.3 million with [Ah][7s] gilleschro happily called all-in with [Kh][Kd] and his cowboys held up on the [Jc][Th][8h][8c][6c] board to double his stack to 11.88 million. Saitek00 was left with 1.8 million. Three hands later, short stack dennishtm made a stand and moved in for 1.46 million from UTG+1 with [Qh][Ts] only to run into ARTtimeSHOW's [As][Td]. Although dennishtm turned a pair of queens, ARTtimeSHOW rivered an ace to send dennishtm home in eighth place. Then, on the very next hand, Saitek00 open-shoved for 1.64 million with [7c][7h] and ARTtimeSHOW called with [Ah][Qd]. Saitek00's sevens held up through the turn on the [6c][6d][Ts][3d] board, but ARTtimeSHOW spiked the [Ac] on the river to end Saitek00's run in seventh place.

Three hands later, gilleschro limped in for 400,000 on the button and GadMO moved in for 2.48 million from the small blind. Gilleschro called, his [9s][9d] well ahead of GadMO's [Ah][2c]. GadMO did not improve on the [Jc][8h][7d][Qc][8d] board and hit the rail in sixth.

After that hand, gilleschro took the chip lead with 16.8 million but was unable to hang onto it for very long. With the blinds up to 200,000/400,000, Wildace_hun open-shoved for 6.42 million from UTG and gilleschro reshoved from UTG+1. Gilleschro's [9c][9d] were racing with [Qd][Jc] and things got a lot more interesting when the flop came down [Ks][9h][8h]. Gilleschro flopped middle set, but Wildace_hun picked up a straight draw. The [Tc] turn filled it and the river blanked with the [5c], sending the 13.64 million pot Wildace_hun's way.

A short time later, gilleschro open-shoved for 5.25 million on the button and ARTtimeSHOW called from the small blind. In an eerie echo of the previous hand, ARTtimeSHOW turned over [9s][9c] while gilleschro showed [Qc][Jh]. This time, however, the pocket nines held up on the [Ad][6h][5c][8s][2d] board and gilleschro had to settle for fifth place.

Wildace_hun was the shortest stack of the four remaining, but managed to double through chip leader krasark when his [Kh][Qh] turned a flush against [As][3c]. Wildace_hun moved up to 6.74 million, but with the blinds up to 300,000/600,000 he was still dangerously short. A few hands later, the action folded to Wildace_hun in the small blind and he open-shoved with [As][9c]... only to have ARTtimeSHOW wake up with [Ah][Th] in the big blind. There was still a decent enough chance for a chop, but ARTtimeSHOW's kicker played on the [Kh][7h][4c][Ac][5c] board, ending Wildace_hun's run in fourth place.

When play turned three-handed, ARTtimeSHOW, Nopaleva, and krasark immediately agreed to pause the action and discuss a potential deal. Here's how they stacked up at the time:

ARTtimeSHOW 20,482,755
krasark 18,079,887
Nopaleva 18,477,358

krasark [Ks][7c]
Nopaleva [Ad][4d]
ARTtimeSHOW [Ah][4h]

The board ran out [Qs][8d][5c][Js][6h] and ARTtimeSHOW and Nopaleva split the pot, eliminating krasark in third place.

Heads-up chip counts

Seat 2: ARTtimeSHOW (50,562,382 in chips)
Seat 4: Nopaleva (6,477,618 in chips)

After one exchange of the blinds, ARTtimeSHOW moved all-in on the button and Nopaleva called all-in from the big blind.

ARTtimeSHOW [Tc][Td]
Nopaleva [Qd][7d]

ARTtimeSHOW's pocket tens held up on the [9d][5c][3c][Ac][5d] board, locking up his first Sunday Million title.

Congratulations to ARTtimeSHOW on joining the ranks of Sunday Million champions! He backed $150,294.11 for the win, while runner-up Nopaleva added another $127,759.28 to his bankroll.

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PokerStars Sunday Million results for 10-25-2015

Players: 5,704
Prizepool: $1,140,800.00
Places paid: 810

1. ARTtimeSHOW (Israel) $150,294.11*
2. Nopaleva (Russia) $127,759.28*
3. krasark (Australia) $127,218.24*
4. Wildace_hun (Hungary) $64,455.20
5. gilleschro (Canada) $48,484.00
6. GadMO (Israel) $37,076.00
7. Saitek00 (United Kingdom) $25,668.00
8. dennishtm (Austria) $14,260.00
9. Sly-Snitch (Australia) $9,126.40

*= reflects the results of a three-way deal that left $20,000 in play for the winner