After three gruelling days, Martin Alcaide has come out on top of a 19,337-entry field to win his first bracelet in Event #70: The Colossus.
This monster event had the fifth largest World Series of Poker field of all time and is the third largest Colossus ever with a prize pool of $5,940,883.
After bossing during the final day, the Spanish-born Bulgarian put in a great performance during heads-up play to defeat Singporean Yujian Eugen Zhou and claim his first bracelet.
We also learned that Alcaide was one of poker great Sergio Aido’s first poker friends. The pair started playing at the same time but Alcaide stopped for 10 years after falling foul of Spanish gaming tax regulations.
Final Action
As Day 3 began, there were still 92 returning players ready to stake their claim, including 2004 Main Event winner Greg Raymer.
Men Nguyen, in the middle of controversy over unethical play, lasted until the final three tables before his exit triggered a loud cheer from the rail.
As the final table kicked off, Alcaide and Brooks Floyd were leading the way with plenty of action still to come.
Nicholas Richards was the first player knocked out, much to the delight of short-stacked Trevor Brown who had been on a good run before his tens came up against jacks.
Brown was then done after making a speculative shove with seven-five suited only to run into ace-jack.
Caleb Powell and Bohdan Slyvinskyi were then dealt with by Joel Vanetten who was putting in a bit of a charge.
Then the momentum began to shift towards Zhou after he scored a huge triple-up to race into the chip lead. Soon after, he almost sent Alcaide packing when his jack-ten cracked the Bulgarian’s aces to leave him with only a few big blinds.
Alcaide then put in a recovery of his own to knock out Ricky Andino quickly followed by Zhou eliminating Joel Vanetten in fourth.
And only a few hands later, Floyd was on his way home, too after running ace-nine into Zhou’s pocket kings.
Heads-up promised a lot with the players having equal stacks. But Alcaide, not long after being close to an exit himself, turned on the pressure and relentlessly increased his advantage hand-by-hand.
The final hand was Alcaide jamming pocket sevens with Zhou calling it off with fives. The poker gods declined to intervene and Alcaide was the tournament winner.
In his post-win interview, Alcaide said:
“I feel so relieved mostly. I was mostly just scared of losing, which is not a good mindset, so I was just trying to concentrate on the hands, so I relieved more to be rid of the tension than the happiness right now, but I’m sure that will change.”
“I actually owe this win to GGPoker, as I would not be here if I had not won a seat into the Main Event.”
Event #70: $400 Colossus Final Table Results
| Place | Name | Country | Prize (USD) |
| 1 | Martin Alcaide | Bulgaria | $501,250 |
| 2 | Yujian Eugen Zhou | Singapore | $325,640 |
| 3 | Brooks Floyd | United States | $247,030 |
| 4 | Joel Vanetten | United States | $188,510 |
| 5 | Ricky Andino | United States | $144,700 |
| 6 | Bohdan Slyvinskyi | Bulgaria | $111,740 |
| 7 | Caleb Powell | United States | $86,800 |
| 8 | Trevor Brown | United States | $67,840 |
| 9 | Nicholas Richards | United States | $53,354 |
| 10 | Joshua Welch | United States | $42,200 |
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