After seeing his name called out in Las Vegas at the 2019 Global Poker Awards, Paul Phua has etched another notable victory in his considerable career of poker success at the felt in the former Olympic village city of Sochi, Russia.

One of the latest and certainly greatest of the recent winners on the MILLIONS Sochi list, Phua’s victory over Austrian high roller Matthias Eibinger heads-up earned him an additional $500,000 as the two men battled for the title. It was some fight and was the fourth final table and first victory for Phua in the series.

With nine players returning to action on the final day, Phua was one of the short stacks to begin with, but he arrested that trend in the opening orbits, doubling up to put himself in the chasing pack. With 42 entries overall, only six players would be paid and three players had to leave the final day without any recompense at all.

Both Poker Central owner Cary Katz and British super high roller Ben Heath were out of the door very quickly, but play always slows down on the bubble and it took longer for Michael Soyza, who was runner-up to Phil Ivey in Event #7 and bubble boy in this event. Soyza was favourite to survive, too, calling off his stack with ace-king from the small blind after Eibinger had shoved from the button with ace-deuce. The board, however, played out in the Austrian’s favour as he hit running straight cards to propel himself up the chipcounts.