Platinum Pass Winner Takes Down Players Championship

Prior to the $5.1-million score, Ramon Colillas had only $10,000 in live tournament winnings.

"So now it’s a dream come true. It means a lot for me."

The biggest-ever [3] $25,000 buy-in tournament has ended, with the lesser experienced players overcoming the best professionals in the world. The final table of 8 only saw one high-stakes regular, but unfortunately for him, Talal Shakerchi had to settle for 8th place, after getting extremely unlucky when his Aces got cracked by the Ace-queen of Julien Martini's. Talal added $509,000 to his bankroll.

Julien then went on to bust another of his peers, this time holding Ace-king against Farid Jattin's Ace-jack. Thanks to the great rush early on, he became the clear favorite with 6 players left. Farid's 7th place finish worthed $746,000 this time.

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The French bracelet winner put the newly earned chips into good use, and put maximum pressure on Marc Rivera, pulling off a huge three-barrel bluff. At this point, Martini felt great about his chances, as he explained: "When you win ace-queen suited versus aces in the first orbit, you're saying to yourself, 'This is mine,'"

Indeed, he was looking great when holding 60% of the chips in play three-handed, after the bustout of Marc Perrault (6th, $1,012,000), Jason Koonce ($1,304,000), and Scott Baumstein ($1,657,000).

Rivera soon busted to Martini and the heads-up began with Julien as the chip leader. The Platinum Pass winner from the Philipines walked away with a life-changing $2,168,000.

Julien was dominating throughout the whole final table

Despite his chip deficit Colillas was able to turn things around when he managed to spike runner-runners to make a full house against the flopped flush of Julien's. The Frenchman took the huge break with class: "When he snap-called, I knew he had at least a flush," he said afterward. "It's a big cooler but it happens every day in poker."

His last 20 big blinds slowly disappeared, and the 30-year-old Spaniard, who got into the tournament after winning a tournament leaderboard in his home country would raise the trophy and book his biggest-ever score, in form of a huge $5.1 million payday.

"It’s amazing," Colillas said. "I’ve been following poker and poker history from a very young age. I was watching Chris [Moneymaker] on my computer when he made it; So now it’s a dream come true. It means a lot for me."

Final Table Results