After numerous $150 starting flights and more than 64,000 entries, the Overlay Edition wrapped up at GGPoker on Tuesday night with Philipp Gruissem taking the top spot.
The win rewarded Gruissem with a payout of $806,385, a massive online poker score for the German poker pro. The event is billed as the Overlay Edition because GG basically builds in an automatic overlay with some free money rewarding the site’s players.
The tournament promised a $10 million prize pool, doubling last year’s $5 million guarantee. The 64,622 entries produced a prize pool of $8.9 million, meaning GGPoker added an additional $1.1 million in overlay to that total.
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Scoring big in GGpoker Overlay Edition
After three days of action, Gruissem eventually found himself heads up against a Brazilian player named “GuGaGi.” Gruissem held just under a 2-to-1 chip advantage when heads-up play began – 404 million to 234 million.
GuGaGi battled back, however, and eventually took the lead with 500 million chips to Gruissem’s 125 million.
The former partypoker ambassador began to turn things around after that, picking up some pots without reaching a showdown. When the stacks were about level, Gruissem moved all in on the river of a board of 6-8-A-8-10 for the last of his 222 million chips.
GuGaGi folded and Gruissem recaptured the lead, 475 million to 165 million. The final hand saw both players get it all in with Gruissem holding A ♠ Q ♠ versus GuGaGi’s K ♦ 4 ♥ .
The board brought a flop of 7 ♦ 3 ♦ K ♣ , giving GuGaGi some hope by pairing his Kings. But the A ♥ on the turn moved Gruissem ahead.
The 9 ♣ on the river brought no help for GuGaGi and the title went to Gruissem. For runner-up, GuGaGi collected a nice payout of $572,777.
The top seven players all earned payouts of at least six figures. In total, the tournament paid out 6,383 entries with $362 paid out for players scoring a min-cash.
Update from my comeback to the pokerworld:
I can still do it…
😃😃😃 pic.twitter.com/AJnO5grI0B— Philipp Gruissem (@TheRealPhilbort) March 1, 2023
A look at the winner
On Twitter, Gruissem has documented his “comeback” to poker recently after some time away from the game. He’s even offered players a chance to stake some of his action. That comeback attempt looks to be complete with the huge score from this week.
“I can still do it,” he noted on Twitter.
At the live poker felt, Gruissem has more than $11.5 million in lifetime winnings. However, his last tournament score was two years ago.
Gruissem’s biggest win came in 2014 when he won the €25,500 High Roller at the PokerStars European Poker Tour Monte Carlo stop for $1.4 million. A year earlier, he took down a $100,000 World Poker Tour Alpha8 event for $1.1 million.
Gruissem’s poker results include other big finishes at events around the world in a tournament career stretching back to 2009.
After welcoming a new baby to his family in the last couple years, Gruissem looks to have decided to spend some time away from the tables. But it appears the German poker pro was ready for a return to the action.
“I’m back in the game!” he posted in January. “After getting a baby and opening up the HPO stable I discovered I still want to play and challenge myself to new heights! Poker never lets me go, so there must be something more in it for me! Different approach, same game! Let’s go!”
That approach certainly paid dividends so far and he now has a herculean win under his belt.
* Lead image courtesy WPT