The Bulgarian poker pro Fahredin “FeriBo” Mustafov defeated a stacked field of 4,105 entries for the first-place prize of $117,260.19. He managed to keep his leading position throughout the final stages of the game, defeating his tough heads-up opponent after 2 hours of intense poker race. Players from all around the world logged in their PokerStars accounts to compete in Event #80-H for the biggest chunk of the prize pool worth $821,000.
To give a better picture of the event, it should be noted that 8-Max offered hours of quality poker action, but it did not take too long until the poker field was considerably narrowed to only 111 players. At that point, it was Stephen “woody1234321” Woodhead who appeared in 1st place on the leadership board. The exciting event awarded the first 511 players with a cash prize.
On Monday, which appeared to be the final day of the event, the poker field welcomed only 16 survivors. Woodstock37 was a close shave, but he could not enter the final table as he was busted in 9th place only to give a start to the official 8-handed final. The eventual winner entered the final table with a nice chip advantage over his opponents. From that moment on, the Bulgarian poker player did not look back even for a second, fiercely protecting his leading position. He was followed by Timothy “Tim0thee” Adams, who was eventually eliminated in 3rd place pocketing a cash prize of $59,582.59.
The Ladder of Success
One by one the players started to depart the final table, while Mustafov was still standing on top. The first to leave was the Argentinian salta44, who boosted his bank account with $10,966.26 for his 8th place. After hours of intense play, there were only 2 survivors on the poker field, Fahredin “FeriBo” Mustafov and the Canadian Mr.Kruges. The heads-up match started with Mustafov being well ahead of his Canadian opponent. At that point, Mustafov was holding a massive tower of 168,352,100 in chips, while his opponent entered the 2-handed battle with 36,897,900 in chips. Despite Mr.Kruges’ chip disadvantage, he was a hardy player as he was fighting tooth and nail until the decisive hand appeared on the board.
Almost 2 hours after the beginning of the heads-up battle, Mr.Kruges seemed to be totally disarmed as Mustafov was slowly, but surely grinding his opponent’s stack of chips. Eventually, the blinds put pressure on Mr. Kruges. On the very last hand, which was a big sweat for both players, Mr.Kruges was holding [6h][6d] against Mustafov’s [5s][4s]. Mr. Kruges flopped a flush draw as the board ran out [Ah][Kh][Jh]. Fortunately for Mustafov, the game was not over as [5d] appeared on the turn, followed by [4c] on the river and put an end to the tournament. Mustafov’s two pairs, fives over fours, secured him a hefty payday, while his opponent Mr. Kruges bagged $83,585.51 for his runner-up finish.
