MicroMillions: the story of Dario Minieri’s second place in the Bounty Hunter, the hands from the FT

The report of yesterday’s online tournaments was both a dive into the heart and into the past. We saw Dario Minieri again, one of the flagbearers of Italian poker in its early days, the first Italian ever at the online and televised high stakes cash game tables, as well as the third in history to strap a WSOP bracelet to his wrist in Las Vegas.

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But how did the €10 MICROMILLIONS-100 NL Hold’Em The Hunter, where ‘D.Minieri’ finished second on PokerStars Poker – Sisal Poker, go?

Here are the hands of all the final table eliminations, with replays of those that featured the Roman player. We’ll hint that Dario also made a crazy call, just to remind everyone who he is.

The Situation

Tournament number one hundred of the MicroMillions series had 3,943 entries for a prize pool of €35,487 divided between payouts and mystery bounties. The final table began on blinds of 100k-200k with ‘TonyTreGanci’ as chip leader and Dario Minieri third in chips.

The mystery bounties in play are all worth €16.50, except for one worth €50.

‘devaster21’ Ninth

After the first level-up, on blinds of 125k-250k, ‘devaster21’ shoves just over 4 blinds from hijack 5 A on an x2 open from ‘alek689’ from UTG.

The original raiser calls with 7 7 and on a board of 7 A K Q 9 , makes player out and collects the minimum mystery bounty.

‘Mateoooo1234’ Eighth

At the same level of play, ‘Mateoooo1234’ opens Q Q from UTG+1 for 1M, leaving 900k, which he promptly puts in on the tribet from ‘TonyTreGanci’ from the button.

The chip leader of the table with over 14M chips shows A Q and on a 8 J A 4 7 eliminates his opponent for the mystery bounty of €16.50.

Dario Moves Up

At this point, Dario has 5.9 million chips, second in the count with a handful more blinds than ‘caty1395’ and ‘dedo3301’. But chip leader TonyTreGanci is over 15 million.

Dario closes the gap by opening 625k (x2.5) Q Q from hijack and then shoving on the tribet from ‘alek689’ who, from the big blind, plays with just under 20x effective and decides to call with A 9 .

On 10 5 Q 6 8 , Dario moves up to 10.9 million chips and collects the €16.50 mystery bounty. Here is the replay of the hand:

‘Nonsuccede73’ Sixth

Still on blinds of 125k/250k, ‘Nonsuccede73’ with 1.25 blinds in stack open-limps 10 6 from cutoff and then calls the shove from ‘TonyTreGanci’ from the button. The chip leader shows up at showdown with 9 9 and on a clean board wins a minimum bounty of €16.50 just before the level-up.

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‘RocuRarocu’ Fifth

On blinds of 150k-350k, ‘RocuRarocu’, left with 5bb after paying the big blind, calls the x2.5 open from ‘TonyTreGanci’ from cutoff.

On a flop of 5 A Q , ‘RocuRacu’ goes stop and go and shoves 1.1 million, ‘TonyTreGanci’ calls with A 2 and on a run out of 9 5 collects the mini mystery bounty.

‘TonyTreGanci’ Claims Another Victim

On blinds of 200k-400k, ‘TonyTreGanci’ also takes the virtual scalp of ‘Caty1395’ by open-shoving Q 10 from the small blind. The big blind calls for 9bb with A 4 and on 7 Q J Q 10 can only succumb for a minimum mystery bounty.

‘dedo3301’ on the Lowest Step of the Podium

At the same level of play, after finding a double-up and reaching 21.5bb, ‘dedo3301’ open-shoves 7 A from the button, finding a re-shove from the usual ‘TonyTreGanci’ from the small blind.

The chip leader, who has more than double the chips of the opponents combined, shows A 10 and on 9 3 5 9 K collects a €50 mystery bounty.

A Hard-Fought Heads-Up

The heads-up begins with ‘TonyTreGanci’ at 34.5 million chips against Dario Minieri’s 4.9 million on blinds of 200k-400k. On the second hand of the heads-up, Dario doubles up by calling with 5 5 the open-shove from ‘TonyTreGanci’, who shows 8 Q .

Immediately after the level-up to blinds of 250k-500k, Dario finds another double-up by raise-calling with 7 7 from the button/small blind the shove from ‘TonyTreGanci’. The chip leader shows 4 A and is overtaken by the Roman player on a K 6 3 9 10.

Minieri now leads 26.8 to 12.6 million chips, and then reaches the thirty million mark thanks to a spectacular call with nine-high that deserves a replay.

But a few hands later, the Roman player drops to 14 million, allowing ‘TonyTreGanci’ to double up in an unlucky spot of a straight vs. full house, the replay of which we show you.

The heads-up goes on much longer than the rest of the final table, with continuous ups and downs in stack sizes. At the break leading to level 500k-1M, the stacks are almost even, with Dario at 20 million against TonyTreGanci’s 19 million.

The stack fluctuations continue, and the blinds rise to 600k-1.2M. Dario open-shoves 16M from the small blind with 3 3 , ‘TonyTreGanci’ calls from the big blind with A 6 and on 9 6 4 7 Q wins the tournament and collects the last minimum bounty of €16.50.

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Here is the replay of the hand that condemned Dario to second place.

Payouts