‘kZhh’ Wins 2021 PokerStars Spring Championship of Online Poker Main Event For $878,781

Hungary’s ‘kZhh’ has won the 2021 PokerStars Spring Championship of Online Poker $10,300 buy-in no-limit hold’em main event, defeating a field of 664 total entries to secure $878,781 after striking a deal during three-handed play. While the real-name identity of ‘kZhh’ is not currently public knowledge, the player has reportedly secured big victories online before, with title runs in a Turbo Championship of Online Poker event and the Sunday Million.

This event began on Sunday, Apr. 25. It took three days of action to narrow the field down to a final table, with ‘kZhh’ sitting atop the leaderboard following the elimination of ‘Körrinho’ in 10th place. Ka Kwan ‘kaju85’ Lau, who had won the $10,300 buy-in pot-limit Omaha main event the previous day for $263,099, earned the first knockout of the day. Lau won a race with A-Q suited against the pocket jacks of ‘23tudy23’ to send the Romanian to the virtual rail with $102,085 as the ninth-place finisher.

Jareth ‘jareth3542’ East was the next to fall, running A-K into the pocket kings of Dan ‘Dannyz0r’ Borlan and failing to come from behind. East took home $127,675 for his eighth-place showing.

Lau’s run in this event came to an end in seventh place. He shoved the river with a missed flush draw, only to run into the flopped set of jacks of ‘kZhh’. Lau earned $173,344 for finishing seventh.

Like East before him, World Series of Poker bracelet winner Christian ‘WATnlos’ Rudolph saw his hopes of winning the title ended thanks to a clash of A-K against pocket kings. The overpair again held up, this time for ‘Beowulf3182’. Rudolph was eliminated in sixth place, earning $238,074 for his latest deep run in a major event.

David ‘MissOracle’ Yan got all-in for his last chips with a flush draw against the top two pair of Kayhan ‘KayhanMok’ Roshanfekr. The river was a blank and Yan finished fifth for $325,098.

‘Beowulf3182’ was left on fumes after losing a massive pot with overcards and a flush draw against the flopped set of Borlan. Shortly after that ‘Beowulf3182’ called off the last of their stack with K7 out of the big blind. Kayhan ‘KayhanMok’ Roshanfekr had shoved from the small blind with A8. The runlut improved neither player and ‘Beowulf3182’ was knocked out in fourth place ($443,934).

The final three players battled it out for a short while before pausing to strike a deal that redistributed the remaining prize money thusly:

Dan ‘Dannyz0r’ Borlan – $894,551
‘kZhh’ -$828,781
Kayhan ‘KayhanMok’ Roshanfekr – $791,074

The deal left an additional $50,000 on the side for the eventual champion. The lead was traded back and forth multiple times during three-handed action. Roshanfekr was left short when his AK lost a race to the pocket nines of Borlan. Shortly after that Roshanfekr picked up pocket aces and got all-in against the K10 of Borlan, who flopped trip kings and held from there to send Roshanfekr home with the $791,074 agreed upon in the deal.

Despite having secured that elimination, Borlan entered heads-up play with roughly half as many chips as ‘kZhh’. That advantage only grew, with ‘kZhh’ holding around a 4:1 lead by the time the final hand was dealt. ‘kZhh’ raised to 2,000,000 from the button with KK and Borlan three-bet to 7,500,000 with K5 out of the big blind. ‘kZhh’ called and the flop came down Q63. Borlan bet 5,010,000 and ‘kZhh’ called. The turn brought the 5. Borlan checked and ‘kZhh’ bet 6,400,000. Borlan check-raised all-in for 22,152,136 and ‘kZhh’ quickly called. The 6 was no help to Borlan and he settled for the $894,551 payday he negotiated, while ‘kZhh’ earned the extra $50,000 for the win.

Here is a look at the payouts awarded at the final table:

*Indicates the payout resulting from the three-handed deal.