Van Fleet Takes Chip Lead into Final Table of the 2021 PokerStars SCOOP-72-H: $10,300 NLHE [8-Max]
Day 1 of the 2021 PokerStars SCOOP-72-H: $10,300 NLHE [8-Max] has concluded with nine players making it through to the final table. In the end, it was Jon "apestyles" Van Fleet who would claim the chip lead with 8,218,008 in chips. The first five hours of the tournament attracted 73 unique players who reentered 47 times to get to 120 entries in total. This created an attractive prize pool of $1,200,000 which easily surpassed the initial $1,000,000 that was set aside for this event.
With the elimination of Eelis "EEE27" Pärssinen, Van Fleet worked his way up the counts and grabbed the chip lead when he took out David "dpeters17" Peters in 14th place. He never really had to look back since then as he also took out "mrG01R4NG", Timothy "Tim0thee" Adams, and burst the final table bubble by eliminating Marius "DEX888" Gierse.
Following him in the counts and joining him on the final table are Thomas "WushuTM" Muehloecker, Wiktor "Iimitless" Malinowski, Christian "WATnlos" Rudolph, Bruno "great dant" Volkmann, Linus "LLinusLLove" Loeliger, Damian "pampa27" Salas, Christoph "26071985" Vogelsang, and Talal "raidalot" Shakerchi.
SCOOP-72-H: $10,300 NLHE [8-Max] Final Table Chip Counts
| Rank | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jon "apestyles" Van Fleet | United States | 8,218,008 | 117 |
| 2 | Thomas "WushuTM" Muehloecker | Austria | 4,500,710 | 64 |
| 3 | Wiktor "Iimitless" Malinowski | Poland | 3,497,249 | 50 |
| 4 | Christian "WATnlos" Rudolph | Germany | 3,209,228 | 46 |
| 5 | Bruno "great dant" Volkmann | Brazil | 2,975,773 | 43 |
| 6 | Linus "LLinusLLove" Loeliger | Switzerland | 2,754,018 | 39 |
| 7 | Damian "pampa27" Salas | Argentina | 2,134,828 | 30 |
| 8 | Christoph "26071985" Vogelsang | Germany | 1,766,062 | 25 |
| 9 | Talal "raidalot" Shakerchi | United Kingdom | 944,124 | 13 |
The only PokerStars Ambassador to battle in this field today was Sam "SamSquid" Grafton but things didn't go too well for him. He lost a big chunk of his stack early on to triple up through Francisco "Tomatee" Benitez and Teun "tinnoemulder" Mulder to lose it all again ten minutes later when called the shove of Samuel "€urop€an" Vousden with ace-queen on the trey-eight-eight-six-deuce board. Vousden held the pocket kings for two pair to bust the Brit in the fifth level of the day.
But he wasn't the only one who would leave the tournament without cashing. Benjamin "bencb789" Rolle, Juan "Malaka$tyle" Pardo, Orpen "OrpTheTurk" Kisacikoglu, Fedor "CrownUpGuy" Holz, Sam "Str8$$$Homey" Greenwood, Matthias "iambest2" Eibinger, and Ole "wizowizo" Schemion all fired the maximum amount of three bullets and all missed with them.
Mikita "fish2013" Badziakouski busted to Adams when he had rivered a flush but saw the Canadian held the nut-flush before Sami "Lrslzk" Kelopuro three-bet shoved his 23 big blinds in with ace-queen. Rudolph had picked up aces and jammed his slightly bigger stack in from the big blind for initial raiser Muehloecker to fold. The aces held for the bubble to burst.
Vicent "gordon0410" Bosca, Peters, Pascal "Pass_72" Lefrancois, "mrG01R4NG", Adams, and Gierse all cashed but fell before the end of the day. The nine remaining players will return on Wednesday, April 21 at 7:05 p.m. CEST to play down to a winner and the action will be covered by James Hartigan and Joe Stapleton on the PokerStars Twitch and YouTube channels.
As there will be cards-up coverage of the event, there will be a 30-minute security delay but the commentary will be live. Hartigan and Stapleton will be joined by special guests so that's definitely something to look forward to. PokerNews will be providing the updates right here on a similar delay and this is what the nine remaining players are all still playing for:
| Place | Prize |
|---|---|
| 1 | $263,023 |
| 2 | $203,788 |
| 3 | $157,893 |
| 4 | $122,334 |
| 5 | $94,783 |
| 6 | $73,437 |
| 7 | $56,899 |
| 8 | $44,085 |
| 9 | $34,931 |
for Van Fleet to flop top pair and turn trips to burst the final table bubble as Gierse busted in tenth place.
, Adams check-raised the 105,000 continuation-bet of Van Fleet to 346,500 and got called.
and Adams fired a bet of 1,122,100 over the line, keeping 14,649 behind. Van Fleet raised for Adams to make the call with the 
for the set to get the tournament to the eighth break of the day with ten players remaining.
, Van Fleet check-raised the 121,275 continuation-bet of "mrG01R4NG" to 350,000 who opted to shove for 960,552 and Van Fleet called.
on the turn and the 
on the river for Van Fleet to turn the flush to bust "mrG01R4NG" in twelfth place.
for Muehloecker to turn the pair of jacks to eliminate Lefrancois in thirteenth place.
, Van Fleet check-raised the 95,625 bet of Peters to 330,000 and was called.
and Van Fleet shoved for Peters to call with the slightly shorter stack of 2,301,281 with the 
for Shakerchi to hit the river for top pair to bust Bosca in fifteenth place.
, it was checked around to the 
on the turn. It was checked to Badziakouski who led out for 120,000 which only Adams called.
for the nut-flush to get the tournament down to the bubble.
