Kelopuro Is the King of the MILLIONS Online 7-Max PKO Championship

Finland's Sami Kelopuro added a PartyPoker MILLONS Online title to his long list of poker accomplishments when he took down the 7-Max PKO Championship this week. Kelopuro was one of 495 entrants in the $1,050 buy-in event, meaning he walked away with $78,653 of the $500,000 prize pool.

MILLIONS Online #08 7-Max PKO Championship Final Table Results

Seventy-four of the starters made it through to Day 2, each doing so with a min-cash for their efforts, in addition to any bounties they collected along the way. Team PartyPoker pros Jaime Staples and Patrick Leonard were among the Day 2 players but they both failed to navigate their way to the seven-handed final table. The same can be said of Andras Nemeth, Niklas Astedt, Kenny Hallaert, and Alexandros Theologis, the latter having bagged up a top ten stack in both the $3,200 MILLIONS Online Main Event and the $320 Mini Main Event.

It was Kelopuro who set the final table, dispatching Jans Arends to the rail in eighth place when his king-jack flopped a Broadway straight against Arends' pocket sevens.

Bulgarian grinder Ognyan Dimov's time at the final table was short-lived after he ran into a cooler situation early into the proceedings. Dimov min-raised to 2,400,000 from the hijack, Eugenio Peralta three-bet to 8,400,000 from the small blind before calling when Dimov jammed for 35,646,499 in total. Dimov turned over ace-king, which Peralta's black aces in the hole had crushed. The five community cards provided no drama, and Dimov was gone.

Enrico Camosci hunted Elio Fox to reduce the player count by one. A short-stacked Fox open-shoved for a little over six big blinds from the button with jack-ten. Camosci looked down at ace-seven, and decided it was strong enough to look up Fox. The flop gave Fox outs to an open-ended straight draw, but he ultimately missed them all.

Peralta then got very lucky against Rui Martins and ended the latter's participation in the tournament. Martins min-raised to 4,000,000 from under the gun with pocket tens, Peralta shoved all-in from the small blind with ace-deuce, and Martins called off his 63,345,558 stack. Peralta can thank his lucky stars for the run out that improved him to a wheel on the river.

Kelopuro claimed his first scalp of the final table, that of Hristo Dimitrov. The action folded to Dimitrov in the small blind and he committed his 18 big blind stack with ace-ten. Kelopuro found a pair of sevens looking back at him, and he was never folding. A few moments later, a jack-high board resigned Dimitrov to a fourth-place finish.

The final three became two when Camosci crashed out one hand after Dimitrov's demise. In a battle of the blinds, Camosci turned a Broadway straight with his ace-queen and called all-in after Peralta had check-raised with his club flush draw. That draw came in on river and dashed Camosci's hopes of becoming a MILLIONS Online champion.

Kelopuro led Peralta by a handful of big blinds going into heads-up but quickly forged what turned out to be an unassailable lead for himself. The final hand took place during the 1,750,000/3,500,000/437,500a level, and saw Kelopuro complete the small blind, Peralta make it 10,500,000 and then call when Kelopuro shoved in his monster stack. It was ace-eight for Kelopuro, and queen-jack for Peralta. Both players flopped a pair, Kelopuro's pair of aces pushing him way ahead in the equity stakes. A deuce on the turn altered nothing, and neither did the four on the river. Peralta finished in second place for $52,587 leaving Kelopuro to capture a $78,653 top prize.

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