Online Action Update: Benji79 Is Weekend’s Big Winner

The second largest live poker tournament in the world was finishing up this weekend in the Bahamas, but as usual even its event numbers were outshone by the weekend guaranteeds at online poker rooms like PokerStars and Full Tilt. The PokerStars Sunday Million alone pulled in a healthy field of 8.677 competitors. Granted, their more modest $200+$15 buy-in meant their prize pool was considerably less than what was up for grabs at the Caribbean Adventure’s Main Event, but $1,735,400 is still pretty good by both live and online standards.

One player that was more than content to hit the virtual felt this weekend was Benji79. They ground through several hours and several thousand players over at PokerStars to take top honors in the Sunday Million. There would be no deal for this surprising underdog who came out of nowhere to claim the first place payout of $255,281.66.

According to Bluff Magazine’s online player stats, the Sunday Million win was Benji79’s first online tournament cash in a career that includes only seven PokerStars entries to date. Second and third place finishers Loxagos and Pendos90, respectively, have had moderately more success, but it was still the biggest career win for all three Sunday Million competitors.

Meanwhile, over at Full Tilt Poker, the site was hosting their monthly Sunday $1,000,000 guaranteed in place of the usual $750K tournament. That was good news for first place finisher KiKaMo who pocketed $176,731.10, even after a three-way deal with second and third place players elitesrush and TheoWalcott14. Deals were also made between the top three players in the PokerStars Sunday Warm-Up and between the top three players in PokerStars’ Sunday Second Chance.

Some notable pros that showed up to play online this weekend included November Niner John Dolan who finished in the money over at Full Tilt’s $1,000,000 Guaranteed and Bolivar Palacios who just finished sixth in the PCA Main Event on Saturday but still had the energy to grind his way to a 33^rd place finish in the PokerStars Sunday 500. David Cooper cashed in big events at both Full Tilt Poker and UB, but ultimately it was KillerJess that took first place in the second event of UBOC 6, the $200K GTD Sniper.

Speaking of UBOC 6, the newest edition of the popular online series has just begun with 29 events scheduled. The series won’t wrap until January 1, so readers that want to get their own piece of the online action still have time to qualify or buy into several of the events.

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