Corentin Soulier Denies Lex Veldhuis a Live-Streaming Hat Trick in the GGPoker World Festival

Two years ago, while a PokerStars ambassador, Lex Veldhuis won his first Spring Championship Of Online Poker (SCOOP) title while live-streaming his play. The same year, he won a World Championship Of Online Poker (WCOOP) title on-stream dressed as Ali G! Fast forward to a couple of days ago, and the popular Dutchman almost repeated a similar feat in the GGPoker World Festival.

Veldhuis was one of 111 entrants in the $5,250 Bounty Hunters Sunday Main Event, where a prize pool of $555,000 was up for grabs. As is usually the case when Veldhuis is playing high-stakes online poker tournaments, he was streaming his play on Twitch.

Veldhuis was going great at the nine-handed final table. Ignacio Moron, Ole Schemion, and Arsenii Malinov busted, and Veldhuis found himself second in chips with only six players remaining.

China’s “yyyyy96” bowed out, followed by Boris Angelov and Andrii Novak, leaving Veldhuis to battle three-handed with Corentin Soulier and Viacheslav Buldygin. The latter crashed out at the hands of Corentin, and heads-up was set.

Going into heads-up, Veldhuis held a 50.3 to 41.7 big blind advantage over Soulier, but the early pots went Corentin’s way.

The final hand saw Soulier raise and Veldhuis defend his big blind with king-seven of spades. The flop fell queen-ten-ten with two spades, and Veldhuis check-called a small continuation bet. A deuce on the turn put two diamonds on the board, and Veldhuis checked again. Corentin kept his foot on the gas and made a pot-sized bet, which Veldhuis called.

The king of clubs landed on the river, and Veldhuis checked for a third time. Corentin went into the tank before emerging with a shove. Veldhuis, with 22.2 big blinds (the pot was 21.3 big blinds before the shove), told his viewers, “I think I’ve got to call this. It’s pretty hard to make pairs. I’m not super happy about it,” before clicking the call button.

Corentin flipped over king-queen of diamonds, and Veldhuis was eliminated in second place for $64,022, leaving the champion to rake in $143,241.

$5,250 Bounty Hunters Sunday Main Event Final Table Results

Massive $10 Million Guaranteed Main Event Is In Play

The $300 million guaranteed GGPoker World Festival continues until June 9, and there are some huge events still to play. The $10,000 GGMillion$ Main Event, with its $10 million guaranteed prize pool, is the largest tournament of the series, and it is already taking shape.

Some 406 players have bought in across the first three Day 1s, but only 38 of those starters have punched their Day 2 tickets. Future Day 1s are scheduled for 7:00 p.m. BST on May 20-24, with a last chance flight running from 4:00 p.m. BST on May 25, which happens to be five hours before Day 2 commences. Cut-price satellites are available for this huge event.

Caspar Engelien is the current chip leader, having finished his flight with 2,844,263 chips or 114 big blinds. The rest of the top 10 is populated by some elite-level grinders, including Sven Andersson, Teun Mulder, and Jans Arends.

Superstar Alex Foxen is in eighth place at the time of writing, which could make things interesting. Foxen is competing in the Triton Poker Super High Roller Series Montenegro festival. May 25 is when Day 2 of this GGPoker event begins, which clashes with Day 3 of the Triton $150K 10th Anniversary Special, Day 2 of the $30K NLH/PLO mixed event, and Day 1 of the $100K PLO Main Event.

One would expect Foxen to be involved in at least one of those Triton tournaments; it will be interesting to see him playing online while he butts heads with live poker royalty!

$10,000 GGMillion$ Main Event Current Top 10

Matthew Pitt hails from Leeds, West Yorkshire, in the United Kingdom, and has worked in the poker industry since 2008, and worked for PokerNews since 2010. In September 2010, he became the editor of PokerNews. Matthew stepped away from live reporting duties in 2015, and now concentrates on his role of Senior Editor for the PokerNews.