Recap Bulgaria – Day 5 – Le grande finale!

Summary: High hand jackpot, the biggest bet ever made, crazy guided your and highlights throughout the hole grand finale of Cash Game Festival Bulgaria.
First thing on the schedule on Sunday was another epic guided tour, hosted of course by co-founder “Franke”. The man, the myth, the legend, who is flawless in improvising with a big sense of humour. The tour began with some electric three-wheel-bicycles to tour the beach promenade up and down. This cultural happening, often including a twist, has been well appreciated during earlier stops. And for Bulgaria, it was of course the same.
After the tour around the city, the VIP’s and other participants came back to the casino for a casino challenge. Everyone got to start with a fictive €1.000 and got 20 minutes to play Baccarat, Black Jack and Roulette. The winner? Jack Fenton of course, who even had the courtesy to tip the dealer a good €500 (fictive of course). Second up was the slots challenge. Everyone got 40 bets of €0.25 and had another 20 minutes to win as much as possible. Winner on this challenge turned out to be Slotsmillion sponsored player, Maret Komarova. Coincidence or a slots professional? Well, you tell me about it. The tour with a twist was wrapped up with some bubbles from the bar and the official handout of 1st prize in Mini golf challenge that took place on Thursday. Winner of that challenge was Daniel Näsman out of Sweden. Daniel received the first ever printed Cash Game Festival Champion T-shirt.
Time flew by and it was soon a Live TV-table taking place. We had some regular players on that one, including our commentator throughout the week; Brandon Allen. Unfortunately, the staked Allen, ended up losing his money to his nemesis Jimmy Lundemo, who could bag a small win from that table. Simultaneously as this table was running, the Go big or go (to your new) home-heads up started.
The later heads up spoken about, was a signed contract between the regular guest, Janar Kokk (including wife Elora Kask) and Co-Founder of Cash Game Festival, Martin “Franke” von Zweigbergk. It was a three times €300 heads up contained of 9 different games. The games were played 6 hands each before a new game occurred. Well, the €300 wasn’t really the big bet here. The winner got to send the loser to a EU-country of his choice for a whole year! The loser has to move within 6 months from today and if he fails, the winner gets to send him a whole month to a country and municipality of his choice. And during this month, the loser isn’t allowed to leave that city. Included in the failure of moving within 6 months, the loser have to wire transfer €5 every single day for a good whole year! And no auto-transfer is allowed, there is a demand of evidence from every transaction.
First round out of three, Franke was off to a good start, when Janar was trying to bluff quite early on in the round of NLH. The games played was the following: NLH, PLO, PLO 8+, Sviten Special, 7 Card Stud, Razz, Crazy Pinapple, 5 Card PLO w/ three boards and Pyramide. The first round lasted for almost 5 hours before Franke could seal the deal with AAxxx—in 7 card stud game.
The second round started after a quick meal, and the two contestants seamed both excited and nervous at the same time. The most nervous one though, was most certainly Elora Kask, Janar’s wife, who really didn’t want to go somewhere fishy. A small rule was also made. Each contestant got to take away five countries where he could not be sent nor send the loser to. The countries excluded was for example UK, Finland, Malta, Sweden, Romania and France. The second round started off quickly with Janar taking a two to one chip lead. A great bluff from Franke in the second round of Pyramide made him even in stacks again though.
The game ended in big drama when the game Sviten Special was played. Franke, who managed to change one and fill his gut shot straight draw on the draw hand, also got three of a kind of the board, sending Janar to the rail and to a new country!
Since Franke is a gentleman he didn’t send the lovely couple to some bad place. He literally took his own favourite country Italy, where Mr. and Mrs. Janar Kokk gets to stay for a whole year. They will for sure enjoy it since that country is amazing.
I can’t imagine the feeling playing at those stakes. I mean, money wise, it’s irrelevant. But to move to another country for a good whole year. Well, that’s a really High Stakes Poker game! These challenges are what we live for though.
Before wrapping this up, I would like to send my biggest regards to the whole team who participated behind the scenes, both prior and during Cash Game Festival. A big thank you also to the lovely staff at Platinum Casino, Sunny Beach, Bulgaria, who took really good care of us.
But the biggest of thanks and the round of applause is for sure to You. It is you as a player who we have the mission to satisfy. Without you there wouldn’t be any Cash Game Festival and I wouldn’t get to go abroad as often as I do. So the biggest of thank you to all the players who attended this festival.
Next Stop, London! Yes. You read it correctly. In only three (!!) weeks we will be live from Aspers Casino, London, UK, again. We already have a bunch of registrations for that event and you can find the registration for on our online webpage: www.yourid.se . Two of the qualifiers are the once who won the High Hand Jackpot in Bulgaria. The winner in PLO ended up being JJJJK, held by Peter La Terra out of Sweden, who gets to bring his lovely wife and kids to London for a great weekend.
In No Limit Hold’em I think we had the sickest of runs during this week. We had four straight flushes, including a KQJT9, which was the high hand. Before it was only 45 minutes’ left. Then Nickolay J. Petrov, a local player from Bulgaria, managed to do, what we thought, was going to be impossible. A royal straight flush occurred with less than an hour left until the campaign was ended. We salute you and are really looking forward to have you in London too.
 
Once again, a big thank you to everyone involved in this stop. Make sure to follow us at www.facebook.com/cashgamefestival as well as here, for the latest of news regarding future stops of the festival.
 
Here are some highlight photos from the final day, provided to you by the once again lovely Natalie Pastakeda of Pastakeda Photography. Enjoy!