PokerStars Ambassadors Arlie "Prince Pablo" Shaban and Lex "L. Veldhuis" Veldhuis will remember the inaugural Blowout Series at PokerStars better than most thanks to both players commanding amazing runs during the festival in the last couple of days.
Shaban hit his biggest score thus far in his poker career on Sunday evening while Veldhuis rocked out two deep runs, one of which was his biggest score on stream to date.
Arlie "Prince Pablo" Shaban Wins the Blowout Series 84-M: $22 NLHE [8-Max, Turbo, Prorgressive KO, Mini Sunday Cooldown SE]
Arlie "Prince Palbo" Shaban navigated through a massive field of 15,572 entrants wo win the Blowout Series 84-M: $22 NLHE [8-Max, Turbo, Prorgressive KO, Mini Sunday Cooldown SE] for $19,707 ($13,399 in prize money + $6,308).
It was one of the quickest Blowout Series events on the schedule taking less than 6 1/2 hours to complete and one of the few times you will see Shaban grinding away from the stream.
Despite Shaban's fans missing out on some incredible action and highlights on Shaban's stream, there was a good reason the PokerStars Team Pro Online member was keeping his thoughts and hole cards to himself.
Shaban was already guaranteed the biggest score of his poker career after agreeing to a three-way deal with fellow Canadian "joshdur" and Brazil's "cuco.sebas". There was still plenty of prizes to be played for with big bounties on the final three players before Shaban finished out on top to bring his all-time highest cash up to $19,707.
It took four bullets for Shaban to get on the right path. He shared with the PokerStars blog that he took out fellow PokerStars Ambassdor Lex Veldhuis (we will get into his big Blowout Series run shortly) and felt like he had a shot at winning the event when there were 75 players remaining.
Shaban then went from an average stack to one of the bigger stacks with 30 players remaining after winning a big flip and felt like he had a big chance to win the event after reaching the final table.
"There were some recreationals at the final table so I realized I had a serious shot," Shaban shared with the PokerStars Blog.
Shaban also shared his late game strategy at the PokerStars Blog: "I think a lot of the amateur players who were deep were playing too tight. It was a $22 buy-in and at that stage, there were $500 bounties on people’s heads. You have to call off with wider ranges because the bounties are worth so much. So, I turned up my aggression against players I saw playing very tight."
Blowout Series 84-M: $22 NLHE [8-Max, Turbo, Prorgressive KO, Mini Sunday Cooldown SE] Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Country | Prize | Bounty | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Arlie "Prince Pablo" Shaban | Canada | $13,399 | $6,308 | $19,707 |
| 2 | joshdur | Canada | $13,122 | $3,006 | $16,128 |
| 3 | cuco.sebas | Brazil | $12,489 | $1,959 | $14,448 |
| 4 | youbartonz | United Kingdom | $6,359 | $1,206 | $7,565 |
| 5 | Elvis "Catholovisck" Renan Paiva Goes | Brazil | $4,533 | $969 | $5,502 |
| 6 | MarceloRoya1 | Brazil | $3,231 | $1,364 | $4,596 |
| 7 | chris288 | Germany | $2,303 | $477 | $2,780 |
| 8 | holms99 | Russia | $1,642 | $346 | $1,988 |
| 9 | LuckyEgorka | Russia | $1,170 | $1,202 | $2,373 |
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Two Huge Blowout Series Scores for Lex "L. Veldhuis" Veldhuis
It was quite the Monday evening for PokerStars Team Pro Online Lex "L. Veldhuis" Veldhuis. Unlike Shaban, Veldhuis streamed his action on his Twitch channel to thousands of eager fans.
Veldhuis appeared to know that it would be a big day for him as not only did he advance to Day 2 of the $5 million guaranteed Blowout Series: $1,050 NLHE [8-Max, The Big Blowout!] but also advanced to the final table of the $1 million guaranteed Blowout Series $5,200 Side Event with $26,714 locked up with the chance at the $219,546 top prize.
The Blowout Series $5,200 Side Event was destined to end first with the final table lasting slightly more than 2 1/2 hours. Veldhuis' run in this event ended a bit sooner with his impressive run ending just short of the podium in fourth place for $97,257.
There was no time to rest or celebrate for Veldhuis after his big win as he had a chance to set himself up for an even bigger one in the Big Blowout.
That run came to an end about five hours later after he couldn't get his ace-queen to hold against the ace-jack held by "Tzitzi989" to go out in 30th place.
Veldhuis was able to bank another $14,029 for his deep run to bring his total earnings well into the six-figure range on Monday evening.
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