Samuel Mullur Wins WSOP Paradise $25,000 GGMillion$ High Rollers Championship

Samuel Mullur’s largest live tournament cash prior to making the trip to the Atlantis Paradise Island Bahamas for the 2023 World Series of Poker Paradise was a $20,000 payday for a 45th-place showing in the 2022 Mediterranean Poker Party main event. The Austrian blew that score out of the water when he topped a field of 533 entries in the $25,000 buy-in WSOP Paradise GGMillion$ High Rollers Championship. Mullur was awarded $2,726,300 and his first bracelet for the win.

Mullur also secured 2,940 Card Player Player of the Year points after coming out on top. This was his first POY-qualified score of the year, but it alone was enough to catapult him into 87th place in the overall rankings presented by Global Poker.

This event also awarded PokerGO Tour points, with 850 for Mullur moving him into 50th place in that high-stakes-centric points race.

This event ran from Dec. 5-8. The huge turnout saw the $10,000,000 guarantee easily surpassed, with $13,325,000 ultimately paid out among the top 80 finishers. As one would expect, plenty of the biggest names in the game made deep runs in this tournament, including six-time bracelet winner Daniel Negreanu (26th), two-time bracelet winner Aleksejs Ponakovs (23rd), bracelet winner Jason Koon (22nd), nine-time bracelet winner Erik Seidel (19th), two-time bracelet winner Daniel Dvoress (18th), and bracelet winner Artur Martirosian (11th).

The final day began with eight players remaining and Daniel Smiljkovic in the lead. Mullur was the short stack when cards got in the air.

The first knockout of the day saw Matthew Stumpf run A_3 suited into the A-J of Smiljkovic to finish eighth ($267,500). Four-time bracelet winner Adrian Mateos soon followed. His final hand pitted pocket fours against A-J suited for Smiljkovic, who made Broadway on the river to win the pot and narrow the field to just six contenders. Mateos was awarded $349,400 for his efforts, increasing his lifetime earnings to more than $39.8 million in the process. Mateos has now made 16 final tables this year, with two titles won along the way. His 5,918 POY points are good for 11th on the overall leaderboard.

Mullur doubled through Smiljkovic during six-handed action to climb to the top of the leaderboard. Klemens Roiter briefly surpassed him, but a classic race with Mullur’s A-K besting Roiter’s pocket tens saw Mullur pull well away from the pack. Roiter was left on fumes after that hand and soon succumbed in 6th place despite finding several double-ups. He was awarded $463,700 as the sixth-place finisher.

(Anonymous) run in this event concluded when his A-2 ran into another pocket pair of tens for Mullur. The board improved neither player and Anonymous was sent to the rail with $625,400.

2020 WSOP main event champion Damian Salas committed his sack with K-Q, only to find himself at risk and trailing the A-K of bracelet winner Frank Brannan. Ace high was still best by the river and Salas was eliminated in fourth place ($856,800). This was his fourth-largest tournament payday yet. The Argentinian now has more than $7.6 million in lifetime cashes to his name.

Smiljkovic got his last 11 big blinds in from the small blind with K-9 and received a call from Brannan, who held A-4. Smiljkovic picked up a gutshot straight draw on the flop to go with his live cards, but the turn and river brought low blanks to keep Brannan ahead. Smiljkovic cashed for $1,192,300. This was the second-largest payday of his career behind the $1,450,000 he took home for another third-place finish in a high roller earlier this year at a Triton Poker festival in Vietnam. The bracelet winner from Germany now has nearly $5.2 million in recorded cashes.

Heads-up play began with Mullur holding 86,300,000 to Brannan’s 46,900,000. The final two went on to battle for more than three hours, with plenty of swings along the way. Brannan was out in front when the penultimate all-in confrontation of the tournament took place. The chips went in on the turn with the board showing 1052J. Brannan, who had check-raised the flop with J4, had improved from air to top pair, but was still trailing the KK of Mullur. The 7 completed the board, giving Muller the double up and the lead.

Just a few hands later, Brannan open-shoved for just shy of 14 big blinds with Q10 from the button. Muller, incredibly, had been dealt pocket kings again. He called with his KK and the K88 flop gave him kings full to all but seal his victory. The 6 on the turn made the 3 on the end was a mere formality. Brannan earned $1,684,500 as the runner-up finisher, which was far and away his biggest live tournament score yet. He now has more than $2.2 million in recorded earnings.

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

Winner photo credit: WSOP / Tomas Stacha.

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