Game of Gold Crowns Winner In Twist Filled Final Week
After four weeks of fantastic poker television, Game of Gold's breakout first season has come to an end. The GGPoker-created series pitted sixteen poker pros and personalities against each other in a mix of team and individual poker-challenges.
The final week included a surprise format reveal for the third-round competition and an epic final table that crowned the ultimate winner of the $456,000 first prize.
But first up, the remaining survivors from round two had to play through their heads-up matches.
Game Of Gold ResultsStart Of Week Four
| Position | Player | Coins |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | Maria Ho | 261 |
| 2nd | Josh Arieh | 220 |
| 3rd | Fedor Holz | 195 |
| 4th | Johan "YoH Viral" Guilbert | 190 |
| 5th | Charlie Carrel | 135 |
| 6th | David Williams | 110 |
| 7th | Nikita Luther | 99 |
| 8th | Andy Stacks | 67 |
| 9th | Lukas "RobinPoker" Robinson | 61 |
| 10th | Olga Iermolcheva | 50 |
| 11th | Daniel "Jungleman" Cates | 41 |
| 12th | Kyna England | 26 |
| Eliminated | Daniel Negreanu | - |
| Eliminated | Michael Soyza | - |
| Eliminated | Kevin Martin | - |
| Eliminated | Jason Koon | - |
First of the Losers
Week three ended with Nikita Luther playing for her eam's life against David Williams. The first episode of week four, wrapped up Luther's matches as she got through some extraordinary bluffs and made some excellent laydowns. The spectators in both green rooms had nothing but praise for Luther's relentless, bluff-heavy play.
After her victory over Williams, she took on Andy Stacks. The disadvantage during this second match was that Stacks had been watching her play from the green room. Now both teams had their lives on the line and Stacks had some reads on her.
Unfortunately, Stacks didn't have long to press his advantage as Luther got her chips in early on the the wrong end of an A2 v. AK match-up and Stacks hit a king to secure his win.
Luther, along with her teammates Olga Iermolcheva and PokerNews ambassador Lukas "Robin Poker" Robinson were eliminated.
Stacks saved his teammates Charlie Carrel and Andy Stacks bringing them along with him into the third and penultimate round of challenges.
Round Three
Round three served the show as a palette cleanser before the finale. The six players who had not already won their finale seats were asked to pair up. This was an immediate source of tension as players vied to match with the best players and avoid matching with the worst.
All that was turned on its head, when Ali Nejad announced the gameIndian poker played against their chosen "teammate." There were also a few special rules to spice things up like the deck is only reshuffled once it gets down to ten cards and players who fold an ace, lose half of their stack to their opponent.
The first match-up was Kyna England v. David Williams, and was brutally short-lived with Williams losing most of his stack with a deuce, thinking he had an ace. England quickly mopped up what was left of Williams's chips and the next two players joined the table.
Up next was Charlie Carrel v. Dan "Jungleman" Cates, the two big villains of the series facing off in one game. Jungleman quickly started raking in pots with a mix of good reads, good luck, and "careless mistakes" on Carrel's part.
The final match-up put YoH Viral v. Stacks, another quick match in which everything came down to the sickest cooler of the series when Stacks picked up an ace against Guilbert's ace. Guilbert shoved and Stacks had to lay his hand down, forfeiting half his stack.
After a few more standard plays where Stacks had the weaker hand he busted and the lineup for the finale was finalized.
Game Of Gold ResultsStart Of The Finale
| Position | Player | Coins |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | Maria Ho | 261 |
| 2nd | Johan "YoH Viral" Guilbert | 239 |
| 3rd | Josh Arieh | 220 |
| 4th | Fedor Holz | 195 |
| 5th | Daniel "Jungleman" Cates | 109 |
| 6th | Kyna England | 81 |
| Eliminated | Charlie Carrel | - |
| Eliminated | David Williams | - |
| Eliminated | Andy Stacks | - |
| Eliminated | Nikita Luther | - |
| Eliminated | Lukas "RobinPoker" Robinson | - |
| Eliminated | Olga Iermolcheva | - |
| Eliminated | Daniel Negreanu | - |
| Eliminated | Michael Soyza | - |
| Eliminated | Kevin Martin | - |
| Eliminated | Jason Koon | - |
The End of the Rainbow
After four weeks of some of the most entertaining poker content out there, Game of Gold was finally going to pay out. The ultimate episode appearedafter the twists and turns of the rest of the seriesto be pretty straightforward. Just a simple six-player sit-and-go with each player's stack determined by the number of gold coins they had won along the way. No commentary, no green rooms, just six players cutting each other's throats for cash.
England started out as the smallest stack but it was Arieh who busted first, losing to Cateswho played the entire table in a leprechaun suit and hat while doing a wildly variable Irish-ish accent.
At this point, Holz had pulled far into the lead, was wearing a wizard's hat, and throwing his weight around.
After that, the game moved slowly, Holz's stack faded and by the time England was knocked out in a three-way pot, he was down to fourth out of four. He then lost a flip with Cates to follow England to the rail.
Three-handed play between Guilbert, Ho, and Cates, was quick. Most of the chips were in Ho's stack so Cates and Guilbert were out there in the middle trying to make things happen.
Unfortunately for Guilbert, what he made happen was his own elimination. The French pro overplayed his pair of queens against Cates's two-pair, then shoved with A6 and lost a 60-40 flip against Cates.
Heads up play then started with blinds of 40k/80k and an ante of 80k. Ho had 15 million in chips. Cates had just 5.8 million.
Despite the discrepancy in stack sizes, Cates was able to make a few moves heads up, but ultimately succumbed when Ho rivered a flush against him on the final hand.
Ho who won the day, taking down the cash and trophy, crowning four weeks of the year's breakout poker show!
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