The penultimate day of 888poker’s XL Blizzard brought players out in full force to play some short-handed tournaments. Saturday held a trio of 6-Max tournaments with the promise of $75,000 in guarantees.

As the online series winds down, these three contests were some of the last chances players had to warm-up and accumulate XL Blizzard Leaderboard points before the massive slate of events that coincide with the $1,000,000 Main Event on Sunday.

Event #28 – $50,000 6-Max

The top tournament of the day was the $50,000 6-Max which drew 298 players (with 151 rebuys) putting up the $160 buy-in and pushing the prize pool past the guarantee. The $67,350 prize pool ensured that at least two players would be adding five-figures to their bankrolls with the entire final table earning a minimum of over $2,500.

The heads-up battle between a pair of PocketFivers went deep into the night as Sweden’s Alfred ‘Kzzon’ Karlsson and Darragh ‘CrackFiend15’  Curtin from New Zealand battled for the $14,817 first place prize.

Karlsson held the chip lead from the get-go and, after a brief surrendering of the lead, ended up closing out the Kiwi. He added the over $14,000 to his over $750,000 in lifetime earnings. Currently the #108 ranked player in the world, he’s likely to see a jump in the rankings this week with the win and potentially surpass his career-best ranking of #103.

For his part, Curtin, the #1-ranked player in all of New Zealand, settled for $10,338.22 for his runner-up finish. While he may be disappointed he didn’t take home the title, the five-figure cash will certainly be a welcome addition to his bankroll as his last five figure score came back in September of 2017 when he took fifth in PokerStars WCOOP Event #50 for over $13,000, which was the largest cash of his career.

Canada’s ‘mixer_jr’ finished in third for $7,745.25, ‘DarkShrine’ from Ukraine finished in fourth for $5,388 and ‘ZDamian’ took fifth for $4,041.

Wrapping up the final table was PocketFiver ’sewart777’ from Russia. The $2,694 cash marks his fourth in the money finish of the XL Blizzard series.

Other notable finished in the 6-Max include: XL Blizzard Leaderboard leader ‘Ao1ing’ (18th), ‘Isildur1337x’ (aka ‘C_Darwin2’ – 20th) and XL Blizzard Event #18 Champion ‘LovePorn69’ (25th)

Event #29 – $15,000 Mini 6-Max

The Mini 6-Max did a great job of exceeding the guarantee with 678 (and their 292 rebuys) elevating the prize pool to $26,675.

First place was won by Sweden’s ‘manne8080’ who cashed for $5,068.25 by winning out over ‘JacktheCpt’ during heads-up play. ‘JacktheCpt’ from Romania ended up with $3,734.50 for his second-place finish.

One of  Belarus’ consistent grinders ‘RakDoll’ bowed out in third, cashing for $2,734.18. His consistent results throughout XL Blizzard has him sitting ranked #12 on the series Leaderboard.

Russia’s ‘IMurtazin’, ‘KellerA’ from Germany and ‘tonikyalta’ from Ukraine also all made the final table , finishing fourth through sixth respectively.

Event #30 – $10,000 Late 6-Max

Once again, the last tournament to start was the first to finish. 259 players (with 81 rebuys) jumped into the $10,000 Late 6-Max to take one last shot at making some money for the day. The prize pool surpassed the guarantee by $7,000 and offered a first place prize of $3,910 for the $55 buy-in.

Lithuania’s ‘yrkkk’ took down that top prize by beating Germany’s ‘DonMaxiQQ’ heads-up. For his runner-up finish, ‘DonMaxiQQ’ walked with $2,720. Five of the six final tablists, including ‘Moldvarpa’ (3rd), Germany’s ‘KellerA’ (4th) and ‘Laly139’ (5th) were awarded four-figures with only ‘toastmanQ’ having to settle for $697 for sixth place.

A note that ’KellerA’, the fourth-place finisher in this one, ended up cashing in all three of the 6-max tournaments on Saturday making the final table of two of them.

XL Blizzard Day 10 Winners