Caio "pessagno" Pessagno Takes Down the PokerStars Stadium Series Freezeout Grand Final - Medium: $530 for $266,066
It wouldn't even take four hours for the final table of the 2020 PokerStars Stadium Series Freezeout Grand Final - Medium: $530 to come to an end with Brazilian grinder Caio "pessagno" Pessagno claiming the victory over Alexandru "JustPray" Marcu heads-up. They agreed on a deal three-way with "RB Tiger" as the third player for Pessagno to walk away with the biggest share of the $2,117,000 prize pool which was created by the 4,234 entries. Pessagno won $266,006 for his efforts over the past three days.
The former PokerStars Team Online member scored his biggest online cash in this event as his previous personal best on PokerStars came when he finished in second place back in 2013 in a Super Tuesday for $66,548. Marcu is also not new to the online poker felt with over $1,000,000 in online cashes.
Rodrigo "digopapel" Semeghini, "luckyluck653", "hanji", Fernando "ferdahouse" Santos, "KKing James", and "The_Senseman" joined them at the final table.
The 2020 PokerStars Stadium Series Grand Final - Medium: $530 Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Country | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Caio "pessagno" Pessagno | Brazil | $266,066* |
| 2 | Alexandru "JustPray" Marcu | Romania | $202,586* |
| 3 | "RB Tiger" | United Kingdom | $202,935* |
| 4 | Rodrigo "digopapel" Semeghini | Brazil | $109,518 |
| 5 | "luckyluck653" | Estonia | $78,068 |
| 6 | "hanji" | Canada | $55,650 |
| 7 | Fernando "ferdahouse" Santos | Brazil | $39,669 |
| 8 | "KKing James" | Brazil | $28,277 |
| 9 | "The_Senseman" | Germany | $20,157 |
*denotes a three-way deal
From Nine to Five
"hanji" quickly won three in a row where they eliminated "The_Senseman" in the last one to jump into the chip lead with a turned nut-flush. A few hands later, "KKing James" was kicked out of the tournament by Day 2 chip leader Marcu who rivered the higher pair before the players could go for their first break. Santos left the final table soon after when his ace-queen couldn't beat the ace-five of "luckyluck653" who flopped two pair.
Six-handed play lasted an hour with several double-ups and big pots going back and forth before "hanji" was halted Pessagno. "luckyluck653" was next to go when they got their eleven big blinds in with ace-jack. They were ahead against the jack-ten of Semeghini but the ten on the flop spelled the end of their tournament run.
Getting Down to a Deal
Pessagno first doubled through Semeghini for the chip lead and kept the pressure on to add more chips to his stack. The latter then doubled up "RB Tiger" before losing the rest of his stack to Pessagno when he ran his treys into the tens of the chip leader.
"RB Tiger" then doubled through Marcu before the tournament was paused and a deal was discussed with Pessagno holding almost 60% of all the chips in play while the other two had almost even stacks. The deal was agreed upon and play resumed immediately. Three-handed play lasted about 40 minutes with "RB Tiger" downed in the third place when they called the three-bet shove of Marcu for the 21 big blinds they had behind with ace-seven suited. The kings of Marcu held to get the tournament into the heads-up phase.
Heads-Up Battle
The heads-up battle started with even stacks with only one big blind between them but soon Marcu took a 2:1 chip lead when he caught Pessagno's bluff. Pessagno's got down to 31 big blinds which he shoved and doubled up with to get the stacks back to almost even. A four-bet and call later, it would be Pessagno with the 2:1 chip lead.
In the final hand of the night, Pessagno called Marcu's raise preflop and flopped a straight flush. He check-called Marcu's continuation-bet who had hit a set of aces. They both checked through the turn when Marcu improved his hand to a full house for Pessagno to check-raise the bet of Marcu. Marcu then shoved to see Pessagno call for the tournament to be over and done with.
This concludes the PokerNews coverage for this event. Thank you for following the updates and see you at the next one!