Giorgiy Skhulukhiya Wins 2021 partypoker LIVE MILLIONS North Cyprus Main Event

Giorgiy Skhulukhiya has won the 2021 partypoker LIVE MILLIONS North Cyprus $5,300 buy-in no-limit hold’em main event, outlasting a field of 839 entries to earn the title and the first-place prize of $683,285.

This was the largest payday of Skhulukhiya’s tournament career, surpassing the $220,643 he earned as the champion of the 2020 Merit Poker Western $5,000 buy-in event. The Georgian now has more than $1.6 million in lifetime earnings to his name.

In addition to the title and the money, Skhulukhiya was also awarded 1,824 Card Player Player of the Year points as the champion of this event. This was his second title of the year, having won a R53,900 ($737 USD) buy-in event at the Sochi Casino & Resort’s Autumn Poker Festival for $58,424 USD and 360 points. With four other POY-qualified final tables under his belt so far in 2021, Skhulukhiya has surged up the rankings and into 16th place in the POY race, which is sponsored by Global Poker. He currently has 2,888 points.

The final day of this event began with Skhulukhiya in the chip lead and nine players remaining. Hadi Khadra was the first to fall when his pocket queens lost a preflop all-in against the AJ of Harpreet Gill. An ace on the turn gve Gill the lead and the river kept him ahead. Khadra took home $68,695 as the ninth-place finisher.

Skhulukhiya earned his first knockout when his pocket kings held up against the A-K of Angelos Michael (8th – $91,470). Skhulukhiya had roughly half of the chips in play after narrowing the field to seven. He furthered that advantage when his K-Q won a race against the pocket eights of Halil Baybars, who secured $115,010 as the seventh-place finisher.

Majid Kamarei got his last 5.5 big blinds in with his A10 dominating the A6 of Skhulukhiya. A six-high flop turned the tables though, and no help came on the turn or river. Kamarei earned $135,940 for his sixth-place showing.

Fabian Bernhauser won one all-in race against Skhulukhiya to double his short stack early on during five-handed action. Not too long after that he found himself in another coin flip spot, with his pocket jacks facing the KQ of Skhulukhiya. queen-high flop gave Skhulukhiya the lead and he never looked back from there. Bernhauser earned $168,745 as the fifth-place finisher, while Skhulukhiya extended his already considerable lead on the rest of the table.

Vytautas Semaska got his last handful of big blinds in three-betting over the top of Skhulukhiya’s open with pocket sevens. Skhulukhiya called with K4 and made kings up by the river to send Semaska to the rail with $226,635.

Harpreet Gill shoved his last five big blinds preflop with K8 from the small blind. Skhulukhiya made the call with 103 in the big blind and flopped tens up to take the lead. The turn and river failed to improve Gill and he was knocked out in third place, earning $307,295 for his deep run. This topped the Canadian’s previous largest score of $217,860 that he secured as the runner-up in the PokerStars Championship Panama main event in 2017.

Skhulukhiya took more than a 4:1 chip lead into heads-up play with Robert Heidorn, who finished tenth in the World Series of Poker main event in 2019 for $800,000. Heidorn got off to a strong start, but Skhulukhiya was ultimately able to regain control and extend his lead even further by the time the final hand arose. Heidorn shoved for around eight big blinds with Q2 from the button. Skhulukhiya called in the big blind with A8 and the board ran out K10987. Skhulukhiya’s pair of eights was enough to secure him the pot and the title, while Heidorn earned $494,810 as the runner-up finisher.

Here is a look at the payouts and POY points awarded at the final table:

Winner photo credit: Merit Poker.

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