With 418 entries in total putting up the $2,100 entry fee, a massive of prizepool of $836,000 saw Joao Simao triumph against Steve O’Dwyer heads-up to claim the top prize of $150,547.

When the final table was reached, it was Steve O’Dwyer who held a huge chip lead, with 12 million chips, some way clear of the 7.2 million that Matt Stone had at that stage. Joao Simao, by contrast, came into the final table as short stack, with just 934,000 chips to his name, but an early double through the player known as ‘m.a-0000’ recovered his chances. Simao was all-in and at risk with pocket nines and needed to hold against the king-queen of his opponent. He was relieved to see a ten-high board double him back into contention.

The same could not be said for ‘m.a-0000’, who never recovered from the hit to his stack, eventually going all-in with pocket queens against ‘ArtHouse2011’, who held pocket aces. Those held to crippled the stack of ‘m-a.0000’ and they left in the next hand, spare change snapped up by Steve O’Dwyer.

It would be Spanish player Andres Gonzalez who left in 8th place for $19,983, busting when he had pocket aces cracked by O’Dwyer’s pocket jacks, a jack on the flop spelling doom for the European player and giving O’Dwyer yet more control over the remaining players.