Sunday at Deerfoot Inn & Casino was a huge day with three games finishing to winners. And there was some pretty crazy action in the endgame of all three to secure the wins.
The main action on Sunday was Day 2 of the $340 Deepstack game. After three flights, the game got a whopping 560 entries for the biggest multi-day field at Deerfoot in a non-Circuit event since 2022, with prizes just shy of $160k.
That main game was only open to players who bagged on one of the three starting flights, but two more games on Sunday had open entry, and both were pretty big. The early side game was the 1-Day version of the Deepstack, with the same starting stack, but faster levels designed to finish in a single day. That game drew 125 entries for more than $35k in prizes.
Finally, at 4 PM, the NLH/PLO Mix game kicked off. It was a somewhat smaller affair with 92 entries for prizes of just shy of $35k, but that was still a 50% increase on the field over the April version of this game.
Adam Cygman Wins $340 Deepstack
With 560 entries, the Deepstack game was a massive field, significantly increasing the 465 entries from April’s version of this game. That meant 56 players returned on Day 2 to compete for just under $160k in prizes, about $25k more than April’s total.
It took about 11 hours to play down from the 56 returning players to the winner, Adam Cygman. Cygman was running pure on the final day, hitting hands when he had to. As one example from early in the action with 25 players still around, Cygman was on his way out the door with kings into the aces of big stack Rauno Tahvonen, but found a king on the river to shoot into the chip lead and leave Tahvonen on fumes.
That was just one example, but it would be a disservice to suggest Cygman won the game on run-good alone. He was also dialed into the action, making big folds in marginal spots where he didn’t look convinced he was behind, but opted to save chips in a high-variance spot. Likewise, he used the big stack and aggression to steal chips whenever he could.
When they got to the final table, it was a pretty serious group. In addition to Cygman, he was facing off against players like the day’s second stack, Curtis Singleton, Victor Ma, Johnny Dalphond, Cris Hillana, Mason St. Martin, Denis Amirault, and runner-up Seamus McGearty, all of whom are familiar faces deep in big games around these parts.
When they got down to three ways, Cygman was the big stack, and he used that stack effectively. And, whenever his aggression backfired on him, he seemed to get there regardless. In one example against third-place Curtis Singleton, Cygman shoved the button three-handed with king-ten while Singleton woke up with pocket sevens. Singleton turned a set, but Cygman had already flopped the joint with J♣Q♠9♠.
In another example, he ran out to the clubs on McGearty. In addition to the clubs, the board was ace-high and very straighty, but McGearty mucked his hand when Cygman showed the nut flush with the king of clubs. In contrast, he found a big call with ace-high to take a big pot over Singleton’s king-high after a big bet from Singleton on the river.
Singleton headed to the cage in 3rd shortly after that hand, setting up a very lopsided heads-up battle between Cygman and McGearty. McGearty was severely short to start heads-up, but managed to chip up and stay alive against the huge stack of Cygman. However, Cygman was just running and playing too well. In the final confrontation, both players flopped an ace, but Cygman hit his lower kicker on the river for two pair and shoved, with McGearty tank-calling with the bigger ace, but only one pair.
Final Table Results for Event #3
See the Payouts tab on the Live Reporting pages for a full look at the payouts from Event #3
| Place | Player | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Adam Cygman | $31,450 |
| 2 | Seamus Mcgearty | $18,434 |
| 3 | Curtis Singleton | $12,768 |
| 4 | Denis Amirault | $10,374 |
| 5 | Cris Hillana | $7,820 |
| 6 | Edward Kershaw | $6,224 |
| 7 | Mason St. Martin | $4,628 |
| 8 | Victor Ma | $2,873 |
| 9 | Ich (Dan) Duong | $2,474 |
| 10 | John Dalphond | $1,995 |
1Day Deepstack Ends in a Hand from the Movies
When poker players see their game depicted in popular media, the depictions are often less than perfect, highlighting questionable plays and presenting scenarios that just don’t happen very often. But, then again, sometimes they DO happen in the real world.
The 1Day Deepstack game drew 125 entries, a small increase over the April field for this game, meaning 13 players shared in more than $35k in prizes for this one. The action played down pretty quickly, ending about 11 hours after they sat down to the felt.
Initially, when winner Guneet Singh got heads up with Ivanna Yatsiuk, it was a cagey affair that saw a lot of walks, limp folds, and raise-and-take-it hands with very little postflop action. That all changed in the final hand, however. The money went in preflop after a four-bet shove from Yatsiuk, and it was the biggest cooler in poker, and something you see far more often in the movies than in real life.
Singh had the aces against Yatsiuk’s kings, and the aces held to give Singh his first win on the live felt, and his second-best score after a runner-up finish in a Circuit event here at Deerfoot in May 2023.
Results for 1Day Deepstack
| Place | Player | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Guneet Singh | $9,442 |
| 2 | Ivanna Yatsiuk | $6,769 |
| 3 | Michael Retuya | $4,631 |
| 4 | Chad Winnick | $3,562 |
| 5 | Ramaz Haymour | $2,494 |
| 6 | Bash Ramahi | $1,781 |
| 7 | Guoqing Wu | $1,425 |
| 8 | Gloria Kanngiesser | $1,247 |
| 9 | James Mccrimmon | $1,104 |
| 10 | Mark Mounsey | $962 |
| 11 | Jacqueline Ray | $855 |
| 12 | Eli Kostelnyk | $712 |
| 13 | Anthony Casten | $641 |
NLH/PLO Mix Goes from Five to One in Just a Few Hands
It was a night for crazy finishes on Sunday, as all games ended in somewhat unlikely scenarios. In the NLH/PLO Mix, the endgame action played down much faster than expected, and the final five eliminations came like wildfire. It started with then chip leader Mike Flanagan sending Tyler Hurman home in fifth in an ace-over-ace spot. Victor Ma was out in 4th just a couple of hands later, notching his second cash of the day after a final table finish in Event #3 earlier in the night.
With play three-handed, Julius Roque found a huge cooler against Flanagan to put Flanagan on fumes and rocket Roque to the lead. Roque flopped two pair with nine-six before Flanagan turned two pair with nine-three. Flanagan shoved the river with the big stack, but Roque snapped it off for the big win. That left Flanagan on fumes, and he emptied the tank completely on the next hand.
That set up a heads-up match between Roque, who was looking for his fourth win in this discipline, and Teo Sanchez, who was runner-up in the Bomb Pot game earlier in the week and has a title in this Mix format as well. It looked like it could be a long heads-up battle between two very solid players, but the cards had other ideas.
Flanagan busted on the final hand of an NLH level, but in the very first PLO hand to follow, Sanchez flopped a set of queens against Roque’s set of jacks with open-ended redraws. Roque ran out to the straight by the river and took down his fourth Half & Half title here at Deerfoot since 2023.
Results from NLH/PLO Mix
| Place | Player | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Julius Roque | $10,139 |
| 2 | Teo Sanchez | $7,691 |
| 3 | Michael Flanagan | $5,244 |
| 4 | Yun Si Victor (Victor Ma) | $3,496 |
| 5 | Tyler Hurman | $2,447 |
| 6 | Kalil Geha | $1,748 |
| 7 | Khan Shariq | $1,573 |
| 8 | Nicholas Lee | $1,398 |
| 9 | Skyler York | $1,224 |
