Online phenom wins Partypoker LIVE MILLIONS Germany €50K SHR

Chi Zhang scoops the trophy and the €800,000 prize. In the meantime, the €5,300 Main Event is well underway.

The 2018 Partypoker LIVE MILLIONS Germany festival offered three High Roller events, with the biggest being the €50,000 Super High Roller. 36 of the best players bought in and they also generated 11 re-entries, creating a total prize pool of €2,232,500.

As expected, the German contingent paid a visit to King's Casino and also jumped into the biggest buy-in tourney. Steffen Sontheimer, Dominic Nitsche and Ole Schemion were all amongst the participants. However, all of them failed to make a deep run, unlike fellow Germans, Dietrich Fast, Johannes Becker and Tobias Ziegler.

But it was another well-known professional, Mustapha Kanit, who had the chip lead, accumulating 8,200,000 in chips, which accounted for 68 big blinds. There were only six places paid, so none of the remaining players could rest and the €130,000 was a huge motivation to play their best game, not to mention the €800k prize for the winner. Johannes Becker, "Big Tony" and Patrik Antonius all put back their chairs in bad mood since they were not amongst the last six. After taking down one of the €25k High Rollers, Patrik finally ended up as the bubble boy in this event.

Contrarily, Dietrich Fast had a nice payday, as he reached 6th place for €130,000. Dietrich lost his last chips against Timothy Adams, holding A♦7 against A8.

Felipe Ramos followed Fast fast(sic!) on his way out. He busted against Mustapha Kanit in a bit of a cooler situation when his AJ ran into the ♦AQ of Mustapha's. Ramos took home €180,000 for finishing 5th.

The last German to leave the table was Tobias Ziegler. The €260,000 prize he got for his 4th place is the biggest score for Tobias yet and increased his total live tournament earnings to $983,009.

Coming from behind, online high-stakes cash game specialist, Chi Zhang managed to take the chip lead in the three-handed period. He started the heads-up with a comfortable lead, after busting Canada's Timothy Adams. Adams lost his last chips thanks to an unsuccessful bluff. Zhang limped in from the small blind and Timothy decided to bump it up to 1.1 million, which Zhang called. On the flop of ♣9♦J♣7 both players checked. The K hit the turn and Chi check-called again, against the 1.5 million bet from Timothy. On the A river Zhang checked once more, only to call off the all-in of his opponent's, so the two revealed their cards.

Adams: Qd 4c
Zhang: Ah 9s

It was all over for Adams, he walked away with €362,500.

Chi dominated the heads-up and the tournament was finally over in a coin-flip situation. Kanit limped, Zhang moved in and the former made the call.

Zhang: 4d 4h
Kanit: As 9s

Board: Qd 7d 5s Td Qs

Mustapha got 2nd for a cool €500,000, while Chi Zhang scooped the €800,000 prize and the title.

Chi, who's more familiar with online games praised the festival in his winner's interview: “I haven't played many of this, I am playing for the thrill of it and feel very comfortable in heads-up. It is probably one of my favorite games. The two €25,000 and the €50,000 after here are perfect. I was a bit nervous at the start, but soon felt very comfortable after I saw what the others were doing.”

Final results

Place Player Country Prize (€)
1 Chi Zhang United Kingdom 800,000
2 Mustapha Kanit Italy 500,000
3 Timothy Adams Canada 362,500
4 Tobias Ziegler Germany 260,000
5 Felipe Ramos Brazil 180,000
6 Dietrich Fast Germany 130,000

Main Event

While the high-rollers were battling it out in the €50K, many players entered the €5,300 Main Event. The tournament has reached Day3. Jon Kyte is currently leading the field with a huge margin, having 3,400,000 chip stack. He's followed by Partypoker Sponsored pro, Joni Jouhkimainen, who has 1.6 million. Other notable players are still in the field with the likes of the aforementioned Timothy Adams, Felipe Ramos or Steve O'Dwyer.

We'll bring you the updates, so make sure to keep on eye on us!