PartyPoker has concluded the MILLIONS Online tournament with the largest prize pool in the history of online poker. The winner of the competition was the Portuguese Manuel “Sheparentao” Ruivo, who in heads-up made a deal with the Dutchman Pim de Hoode, who played under the pleasing Russian eye nickname ForMatherRussia. As a result, the players who took the top two lines of the tournament table received over $2 million in prize money each. Manuel Afonso Suárez Ruivo was the best among 4367 players who took part in the tournament. His winnings amounted to 2.329.944 dollars. This amount was a record for winning an online tournament. Previously, only twice in history have players managed to earn over $2 million, and both times on PokerStars, in 2010 and 2011. Until now, the Portuguese Ruivo’s highest achievements were considered to be the first places in the Main Events of 888poker Destination Venice and Povoa Poker Festival, as well as a victory in one of the DeepStack Championship Poker Series events this summer in Las Vegas. The player’s maximum winnings before winning MILLIONS Online was $230,000. Despite the impressive amount of the winner’s prize money, the most impressive success story was the path of the player who took third place in MILLIONS Online. 21-year-old Slovenian Blaj “Scarmak3r” Zherjav made it to the top 3 via satellites, turning $5.5 into $1,364,687! His story, worthy of a Hollywood movie script, could outshine Chris Moneymaker’s WSOP win in 2003, when the American poker player made it to first place and $2.5 million in cash after spending $86 on qualifiers. The fourth dollar millionaire according to the results of MILLIONS Online was the Portuguese Pedro “Maddonaa” Marquis with a prize of $1,091,750. In total, 21,835,000 dollars were raffled off at the online tournament. The $5,300 MILLIONS Online tournament ran from November 25 to December 5, 2018. The event initially grabbed the attention of the community with the largest guaranteed prize pool in online competition history, $20 million. Due to the interest of the players, before the start of the final draw, the prize fund of the tournament exceeded the stated guarantee.
