The February BIG Sunday delivered on its doubled up €200,000 guarantee this weekend, a 30-tournament extravaganza that saw 88% of the fields coming from satellite and free roll winners – and a new name on the Main Event trophy!
We’ll start our recap with that €530 buy-in biggie, five of the 50-player field booking their seats in Saturday’s BIG Sunday warm-up €2650 freeroll.
With €25,000 on the line come Sunday evening, the Main Event heated up quickly, with TwitchTV Bryan 'BOOMswitch' Paris and fellow HS reg Pepperhype just missing out on the 8 paid spots.
The rest were in the money, and last BIG Sunday’s Triple Crown winner – used2bcool - turned a profit by grabbing 7th place and €750, putting his T€10k bonus from January to good use.
Another well-known face – or name rather – from the HighStakes MTT tables fell in 5th – Jack of HighStakes legend AbreuSan taking €2000 for a fine run, and HS reg SunTzu made it to 3rd for a very healthy €3500 cash.
Heads-up saw Pinkers999 do what Joseph 'subiime' Cheong had done twice before, taking the Main Event title, and a whopping €9,000 payout, defeating ma5t3rm1nd who took €5,250 as runner-up.
It was far from just a Main Event day at the HighStakes tables of course, some 30 events spread as far apart as Freerolls and €1000 buy-ins, and with everything inbetween.
The €6500 in free cash handed out by HS in the run-up to Sunday’s biggie meant there were regs, recs, visiting pros and new accounts all chasing BIG Sunday glory.
The first €22 buy-in event on the schedule saw HS reg Red8Dawn take advantage of a nice overlay, scooping €430…
…while the early afternoon saw Jack of HighStakes regular and frequent freeroll player kosha7799 take down the €11 buy-in, €250 GTD FreezeLow…
AbreuSan warmed up for the Main Event with a 4th spot in the €1000 GTD Freeze Mid tourney, won by RiskGerek for €645 ahead of Spikefinger1…
Event 7 of the day, the Three Fifty, smashed its guarantee by a full 25%, and was a sign of things to come for a site newbie.
Vietnamese player screwface saw off Calaphe heads-up to take down the win worth €4,536.
There were BIG Sunday bounties doing the rounds in the €4k GTD KO High, and eventual winner 1nc0gn1t0 bagged €1000 worth to add to the more than €2k for winning the event. Toji more than doubled his runner-up prize with €1200 of head-hunting, though it took two bullets to get there.
It was ‘Battle of the Regs’ in the KO Mid event, some 26 players each with a €100 bounty on their heads, and SunTzu lopped off six of them on the way to victory.
Heads-up (literally!) saw SunTzu take down fellow HS reg ThieF83, who himself decapitated (not literally) two players along the way.
The €5000 GTD Seoul smashed its guarantee when 73 entries appeared for the €109 buy-in tournament, and it was new kid on the HS block, KeriN_, who took it down for a €3,139 score, PkrGremlin snaring 2nd for €1,752.
Event 14 saw returning reg and former MTT crusher LordScratch scoop the €5332 top prize in the €10k GTD Rebuy, another tournament that far exceeded its guarantee.
Toji and SunTzu were again well to the fore, taking over €3k between in 3rd and 4th respectively.
Event 20, the €22 buy-in Mid, must have caught most players on a dinner break, with 80% of the guarantee an overlay!
Used2bcool, the Triple Crown winner last time out, took full advantage and saw off the challenge of fellow HS reg PepperHype to bag the €920 top prize.
The €55 High saw several HS legends battling it out at the final table, and it was PepperHype who outlasted his colleagues, but it was ‘only’ good enough for second and €1000.
Out ahead was jdwadzinski who scooped the €1500 and a BIG Sunday title.
The €5k GTD Daily €88 saw a winner who emerged from one of the many freerolls that led up to the BIG Sunday series.
Luckybroo turned that into a €2,044 payday, with Bryan 'BOOMswitch' Paris finally showing up in the money with a 4th place cash worth €624.
Poker streamer Fergal 'fergrberger' Brophy took full advantage of a €3k overlay in the €10k GTD Re Mid, taking down the €109 buy-in event for, coincidentally, a sweet full €3k!
The evening schedule was well underway by now, and it was screwface who landed the first double of the day, passing the €10k mark with a €6k score, having already won event 7.
High Stakes cash game player nevitup88 came 2nd for €4k, while TheQueenB - who qualified for free - came 3rd for €2400.
By the time the 30th and final event of the day came around, it was the aptly-named shadowreaper who outlasted the field in the €530 buy-in, €6500 GTD Last Chance.
Bryan 'BOOMswitch' Paris rounded off a quiet day by his high standards with a 3rd place worth €1360, and with adminGL coming 2nd for €2645, there was someone in charge to switch off the lights on another impressive BIG Sunday outing!
More than €200,000 in prizes and an excellent mix of players made the day a huge success, and the next BIG Sunday is already scheduled.
Sunday March 1st is the date for your diaries, with plenty of ways to qualify as usual. Check out the HS lobby for further details!
