Dan “Danny98765” Smith continued his blowout tournament year by winning the PokerStars Sunday Million taking home $8k more than 1st place prize money. This remarkable outcome is explained by a five way deal based on a chip count chop.
When the players paused to discuss the deal, Danny had a little over 33m chips, 46.8% of the total chips in play.
The remaining prize pool for the five players left in the tournament amounted to $613k, $20k of which PokerStars insists must be left as a prize for the eventual winner. There was $593k to be chopped up between the remaining players.
To calculate a chip count chop each player is first awarded the next payout amount—in this case $58k. The prize pool that is left is then divided among the players based on their percentage of chips in play with every chip having equal value.
After a brief negotiation the three largest stacks agreed to ship ~$800 to the short stack leaving an agreed deal of:
| Player | $ Awarded from Deal | Amount of Chips | % of Chips in Play |
| Danny98765 | $199,504.25 | 33,086,642 | 46.9% |
| tulipaner | $115,841.91 | 13,648,882 | 19.3% |
| Karger222 | $102,993.24 | 10,663,672 | 15.1% |
| AMELPADRINO | $89,991.04 | 7,457,758 | 10.6% |
| yurabond | $85,000.00 | 5,743,046 | 8.1% |
After the deal, play continued with a winner-take-all format for the remaining $20k prize money. In a three-way pot yurabond knocked out AMELPADRINO and Tulipaner in 5th and 4th place respectively. Karger22 went next leaving former shortstack yurabond heads up against Dan Smith who quickly took control to win the final $20k.
The original payouts for the first five places were:
1st — $211.8k
2nd — $155.8k
3rd — $113k
4th — $74.8k
5th — $57.9k
Was it a Good Deal?
AMELPADRINO locked in an extra $32k adding 55% to his winnings.
Tulipaner received an extra $41k adding 55% to his winnings
Karger222 actually received 9.7% less than his third place finish would have paid had they not done the deal.
Yurabond is the player who will probably be most conflicted by the final outcome. As the shortstack, the original deal gave him 43% more than 5th place money, but he managed to negotiate an extra $2.4k from the other players giving him $27k more than he would have received if he had finished 5th.
However, yurabond managed to triple up a few hands after the deal and finally took 2nd place which would have originally paid over $155k. He must be completely lost as to whether the deal made him an extra $27k or cost him $70k!
Dan Smith will not be suffering any doubts today, finding the only way possible to win more than 1st place money, and must be pleased not just with the win, but the extra $8k that added ~4% to his winnings.
Dan’s blowout year has so far included wins in the $100k Aussie Millions Super High Roller, the €50k EPT Barcelona Super High Roller, and three €5k NLHE side events at the EPT Grand Final. His 2012 tournament winnings now exceed $3.6m.
