Brazilians Dominate PokerStars Stadium Series Freezeout Grand Finals

The recently-concluded PokerStars Stadium Series ended successfully on August 4, after paying out more than $52 million in total prize money across four weeks of intense online action. But the celebrations aren’t over yet as there will still be a Stadium Series After Party scheduled for August 16, which comes with a cool $1 million guarantee! Meanwhile, let’s recap the final night of the massive series, which was marked by three Freezeout Grand Finals
Brazil Bags High & Medium Editions
The Freezeout Grand Finals involved three buy-in categories – Low, Medium, and High, and when the dust settled all but one were taken down by the Brazilians!
The High $5,200 NLHE (8-Max) drew a total of 971 entries, with the nine remaining players returning on Tuesday to play down to a champion. The nine-handed final table was comprised mostly of Russians, but the title ultimately went to Brazilian poker pro Fernando “fviana” Viana, who took home $721,235 as top prize after a three-way deal with Vlada “Vlada2018” Stojanovic (runner-up, $553,932), and Maxime “Daghemuneguu” Chilaud (third-placer, $570,220).
Viana marked his victory with set-up hand which ended up in Stojanovic moving all-in and Viana making the call with a turned straight against the turned set of his heads-up opponent. Viana is popular on the Brazilian poker circuit for his achievements both live and online. In 2019, he finished third in Event #56: $1,500 NLHE Super Turbo Bounty during the 50th World Series of Poker (WSOP) where he won $116,426.
“serggorely17”, Sergei “Futti18” Koliakov, MarinkaHT, and Leslie Groves, all from Russia, occupied the 4th-7th spots respectively, while Belarusian “isscreamo” and another Russian “Goallinfishara” finished 8th and 9th.
Meanwhile, another player from Brazil dominated the Freezeout Grand Final Medium edition. Caio “pessagno” Pessagno took down the $530 buy-in event after defeating Romanian player Alexandru “JustPray” Marcu heads-up. But prior to that a three-way deal was already agreed between Pessagno, Marcu, and third-place finisher “RB Tiger” from the UK.
Pessagno walked away with the biggest chunk of the prize worth $266,066, while Marcu and “RB Tiger” collected $202,586 and $202,935 respectively. All finalists walked away with at least a five-figure score, including “The_Senseman” (9th, $20,157), “KKingJames” (8th, $28,277), Fernando “ferdahouse” Santos (7th, $39,669), “hanji” (6th, $55,650), “luckyluck653” (5th, $78,068), and Rodrigo “digopapel” Semeghini (4th, $109,518).
Pessagno was a former member of PokerStars Team Online. He won his previous biggest score at the online platform back in 2013 when he finished runner-up in a Super Tuesday tournament for $66,548. But now, that score has been surpassed by his latest victory at the Freezeout Grand Finals.
The PokerStars Stadium Series Freezeout Grand Final Low attracted a massive field of 21,207 players, generating $1,060,350 in total prize pool. In the end, the $55 buy-in event was captured by “Cheessseburger” from the Netherlands for $96,029 in top prize. Belarusian “23lovecrew” came in second with $76,928 in winnings, while “Pocok85” of Hungary took home $69,760 for finishing third. Their scores came as a result of a three-way deal.
The rest of the final table was comprised of “peitschexx” (9th, $7,285), “Houtsteen” (8th, $10,220), “mellov” (7th, $14,337), “GugstavoHG” (6th, $20,113), “babecallmee” (5th, $28,215), and “Catholovisck” (4th, $39,581).
Other Winners 
Several other players also won big in the month-long series. They include Scott Margereson who won the $5,200 NLHE 6-Max for $119,483, Parker “tonkaaaa” Talbot who triumphed in the $2,100 Weekly Final for $261,489, and Niklas “Lena900 Astedt who earned a cool $230,434 for taking down the $10,300 NLHE event,
The PokerStars Stadium Series also created history after German entertainer Jens “TheRealKnossi” Knossalla was able to break the Twitch Poker Viewers record after streaming a $1,000 Stadium Series event participated in by his good friend Frank “Knueppel” Stockhaus. The stream attracted more than 92,000, viewers, surpassing a previous record set by no other than top streamer Lex Veldhuis who later congratulated both Knossalla and Stockhaus for achieving such a feat.