Italian poker pro (now believed resident in Slovakia) Dario “Secret_M0d3” Sammartino enjoyed the biggest pay-day in a sparkling online tournament career this week when he took down the $21,000 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em 8-Max High Roller event of the 2016 PokerStars Spring Championship Of Online Poker (SCOOP).
143 entries were recorded for the event, generating a prize pool of $2,931,500, and the young Italian claimed the lion’s share at $718,217.50 after besting a stellar final table that included Brian Rast, Jason Koon and Rafael Moraes.
Among the many notable names who fell by the wayside before reaching the final table were Martin Jacobson, Shaun Deeb, Mike McDonald, Jason Mercier, Dan Smith, Chun “SamRostan” Lei Zhou and Mikael “ChaoRen160” Thuritz.
On reaching the heads up stage of the competition Sammartino faced Henrik Hecklen, but the Italian was on a roll that seemed unstoppable and despite putting up a good fight Hecklen was eliminated for $498,355.
Other final table pay-outs included:
3 “hurrrrican3” $381,095
4 Rafael “GM_VALTER” Moraes $263,835
5 Martin “nizmo jiz” Kozlov $190,547.50
6 “bencb789” $146,575
7 Jason “jakoon1985” Koon $117,260
8 Brian “tsarrast” Rast $87,945