Not much competition for the weeks biggest winner this week as Ilari "Ilari FIN" Sahamies just about scraped to the top of the leader board, taking top spot by the thinnest of $1,895,575 margins. In fact, had Ilari managed to hold on to his golden touch for the last few hours of yesterdays play, his weekly win could have been over $2.7 million as at one point he was up $500k yesterday before losing it all during a three hour session. As it is I'm sure the $2.2 million win will be good enough to satisfy the aggressive Finn who now sits among the top 20 high stakes winners at PokerStars this year whereas this time last week he languished among the sites biggest losers, showing a $1.4 million deficit.
From Monday to Thursday Ilari FIN managed to top the leader board every day as the $200/$400 PLO games hit their stride. His winning streak started however not at the PLO tables but the FLO8 tables as he earned the majority of his $182k Monday win at the Hi Lo tables.
Tuesday was really when Ilari began to motor as he started to take on the $200/$400 tables. In particular he benefited from Jeans89 and patpatman on his way to a $662k Tuesday win. We also saw shark bait nasud 11 post a rare $321k win on Tuesday, before he promptly dropped $335k the following day. Ilari FIN on the other hand continued playing post midnight into Wednesday with more success, adding over $180k more to his haul, making his 48hr total winnings over $1 million
Thursday brought more of the same with Ilari winning another cool half million at the $200/$400 PLO games.
The "Ilari show" was temporarily suspended on Friday as Jeans89 made good progress during a heads up encounter with Ilari on his way to topping the daily leader board with a $232k win, somewhat making up for his big loss to Ilari just two days previously. However, Ilari still managed to offer the most compelling railing on Friday as he fought his way back to end the day just $15k down. By the end of the day he was taking on another more than competent high stakes PLO pro in Phil "MrSweets28" Galfond which ran into Saturday.
Saturday, as it turned out, was Ilari's best day yet as not only did he crush Galfond but he also won a packet playing Sauce123 (in a three way annihilation with patpatman) during an evening session) before ending the day a massive $777k winner. Saturday also saw Ilari pick up several +$200k pots, as well as his biggest pot of the week;
This pot is indicative of Ilari's luck on Saturday as patpatman's flopped full house is busted by Ilari's turned Quads - $223.3k pot
Interestingly enough Ilari FIN didn't win any of the biggest pots of the week which all took place yesterday - although he did feature in all of them;
Ilari FIN turns the nuts only to see Ben86 hit a gutshot straight draw on the river to take this $303.9k pot
Again Ilari is in front when the money goes in vs barcode but he can't fade the flush as his opponent takes this $303.5k pot
A good draw for Ilari but his flush fails to materialise as Ben86's set of three's improve on the river in this $272.8k pot
So, Ilari lost over $400k in just these three pots, any of which could have gone his way - however, he cannot really be too disappointed given that lady luck had certainly been by his side for the majority of the week.
Miles behind Ilari on last weeks leader board we see Sam "tr1cky7" Trickett who won just over $310k, mainly due to a +$261k day on Tuesday where he won at the $50/$100 and $100/$200 PLO tables with GVOZDIKA55 and The Liar the only other players winning over $200k last week.
Biggest Winners 22nd-28th October
Ilari FIN +$2,205,639
tr1cky7 +$310,604
GVOZDIKA55 +$233,952
The Liar +$205,130
To see the full list of winners and loser from this period please see this highstakes results page