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It is not exactly a true happy ending, but to this point, it would probably be hard for Jonathan Duhamel to want much more after the frightening pre-Christmas incident that saw him robbed and beaten in his own home. Last Wednesday, the most prized item swiped in the break-in, Duhamel’s 2010 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event Championship bracelet, was found. It looks like it was run over by a car, but it has been reunited by its rightful owner.

The diamond-encrusted bracelet looks like it was run over by a car because it was. According to a report on PrincePoker.com, It was discovered by Montreal street cleaner Denis Theriault, who apparently sucked it up in his street sweeper when cleaning the Ville-Marie tunnel. Upon emptying the refuse collection bin, Theriault found the valuable piece of jewelry. There is no definitive explanation as to how the bracelet ended up on the street, but one could guess that whichever culprit was in possession of the poker award decided they could not risk keeping it or selling it, so they just threw it out the window of a car while in the tunnel.

As the saying goes, the bracelet now has “a face only a mother could love.” The links are gone, leaving just the main plate intact. Both the front and back are mangled, dented, and chipped every which way and Jonathan Duhamel’s last name has been scratched off the reverse (which strikes us as funny considering it is still an ornate WSOP bracelet engraved with the date and name of the tournament and the first name “Jonathan,” so removing the last name does nothing to disguise the bracelet’s identity).

In his blog in the days following the events of December 21st, Duhamel wrote of the items that were stolen, “The thieves stole some money, but mainly my WSOP champion’s bracelet and the Rolex watch that my sponsor, PokerStars, gave me to commemorate the event. I won’t hide the fact that these two items have a much larger value for me than their commercial value, and I really hope we will be able to retrieve them in (the) near future.”

After the incident, WSOP Media Director Seth Palansky told the Montreal Journal, “The tournament director, Mitch Garber, contacted Jonathan after the incident and informed him that the bracelet can be replaced.”

Poker News Daily contacted Mr. Palansky to confirm that the offer was still in place, even though the bracelet was recovered. He reiterated that the WSOP will still do what it can to make Duhamel whole, saying, “We stated previously we will work with Duhamel on this issue and intend to do so if he determines he wants the bracelet replaced.”

The Rolex was found before the end of December and half of the $115,000 that was taken from a safe in Duhamel’s residence, was found earlier this year. Acting on a tip, members of the Longueuil Police Department located an envelope containing the cash in a mailbox. It was easily identifiable as Duhamel’s because much of it was in high denomination Euros, which are not frequently seen in North America.

Every side event at this PokerStars Macau Poker Cup: Red Dragon has more than doubled its respective guarantees with a new record being set each passing day of the nine-day schedule.

Germany’s Sandro Simon won event no. 4 as he beat the HKD $4,000 buy-in event’s record 212-player field and was awarded the HKD $179,500 first prize.

Wednesday’s action brought back 25 players who made the money and Day 2 would determine each player’s share of the HKD $747,936 prize pool. 2011 Asia Player of the Year Shaq Lin was amongst the hopefuls but he was the first to fall as he exited in 25th place.

Japan’s Yosuke Sekiya made his second final table in as many days but was knocked out in third place by Taiwanese Shao Hung Lee to set-up heads-up play against Simon. In the final hand, both players got their chips in for a classic coin flip, with Lee’s A-T against Simon’s pocket sixes. Lee missed the board, handing the title to the 25-year-old German.

“I guess I will use my winnings to play more poker, no doubt!” said the online poker pro. “I love to travel around, especially Asia. I was at APPT Manila and met a few friends. This is my first time in Macau. I won my seat to the main event and hope to do well.”

Event 4: $4,000 NLH – Final Table Results
1. Sandro Simon (Germany) — $179,500
2. Shao Hung Lee (Chinese Taipei) — $123,400
3. Yosuke Sekiya (Japan) — $74,800
4. Yu Cheng Rong (China) — $56,100
5. Kunal Chandra (India) — $44,900
6. Takanori Sugimoto (Japan) — $37,400
7. Hirotoshi Nakabo (Japan) — $29,900
8. King-chung Wang (Chinese Taipei) — $22,400
9. Roel Pijpers (Netherlands) — $18,700
10. Mitsuyo Sano (Japan) — $15,036

Just like the rest of our body, our ears are not invincible. This edition of Stay Stacked looks at the possible affects that your headphones could be having on your long-term hearing.

Ask those who spend their time working on the European Poker Tour to name the worst final table they ever seen and most will undoubtedly say Copenhagen, Season 4, an epic all-nighter that somehow managed to make time stand still.

It’s true, it was a tough night. But they’re also wrong. That final table was a belter, a classic, and among the most memorable of EPT stories.

It started with a final table line up that promised a lot. It ended, at 1.40am, with a heads-up contest that featured extended periods of boredom, interspersed with occasional moments of drama. Well one moment of drama, a coup de grace delivered in Hollywood fashion.

The only snag was that the heads-up lasted nearly five hours.

Before that the final had rattled along nicely. Danny Ryan departed in fifth, which most thought was premature. Rasmus Neilsen followed in fourth before Magnus Hansen departed in third place.

It left the heads-up finalists; Tim Vance, a gravel voiced amateur player from the United States, and Soren Jensen, the local man from Aarhus, Denmark.

Tim Vance: No one sings like you any more…

No one could have predicted that the heads-up would last so long. The final up to then had been at a heady pace, with Vance, a man who wears a cap on his head and his heart on his sleeve, swaggering past the opposition. Heads-up, all that would change.

The initial impression was that both players were simply sizing each other up, deploying clever, sophisticated analytical skills to get the measure of each other. These were no ordinary finalists.

Vance, who looked more and more exhausted as the night went on, would pace the stage, repeatedly asked to return to his seat where he would stand, the adrenaline in his blood making sitting impossible. Time and again he would shout towards the bar for more orange juice, demanding more and more ice in his drink each time.

“Tell them American ice!” he said, as if this would explain all to the fatigued bar staff.
Jensen on the other hand was as muscle bound firebrand, who celebrated victory in the hands he won by yelling “Come on the whites!” which everyone hoped referred to the colour of shirts worn by his favourite soccer team Aarhus.

As time went on this “sizing up” period soon revealed itself to be something completely different. It was in fact a stalemate, both players beginning long process of folding, as each, it seemed, waited for the nuts before progressing any further than a checked flop.
It was at time agonising for those watching as the levels passed by without so much as a change in the chip counts, which had Vance ahead by some way.

Then the hand that brought everyone back to life.

Both players checked the flop of 2-7-8 with two spades. Those watching were used to seeing both players check so had no idea this would be the last hand. The turn came a three, another spade, at which Jensen bet 115,000 which Vance called without delay for the four of spades on the river, which prompted Jensen to move all in. With the same degree of theatre Vance had used throughout the tournament, he stood up, turning to Jensen.

“It’s been nice playing with you sir… I call.”

Vance threw down ace-ten of spades, the nuts, to wrap up what in hindsight had been an incredible performance. He immediately screamed in delight and then walked straight out of the tournament room. Tournament staff, keen to get things wrapped up, wondered what to do before it was agreed that Vance had at least earned a cigarette break. Hell, we all had.

When he returned Vance, almost asleep, collected his trophy and check for more than €800,000. His name would now be part of EPT folklore and Vance himself one of the best loved, and oft talked about players in the tour’s history.

If I remember correctly, on my sixth birthday I got a horse-racing board game. It was a curious gift for a young boy that perhaps explains a subsequent interest in recreational, er, gambling. The reason I mention it, however, is that this sixth-birthday gift was worth a few dollars in today’s money, and to compare that figure with what the Sunday Million is getting for its sixth birthday.

The Sunday Million is getting $6 million.

Yes, you read that right. The PokerStars big cheeses have just told us that the Sunday Million celebrates its sixth anniversary on March 11 with a $6 million guarantee and at least $1 million to the winner.

Before I let that juicy news sink in, let me tell you that although you can enter this special Sunday Million as usual for $215, you can get in for as little as $1 through the satellite route. Do the math: Parlay $1 into at least $1 million and you have a return on investment of, well, quite a lot.

This super-sized edition of the Sunday Million begins at 14:30 (ET). There will be a special 1,000 seat guaranteed satellite running just before it kicks off, with feeder satellites starting from only $1. To buy-in direct or register for a satellite, open the PokerStars lobby and go to Tourney>>Special.

During PokerStars’ recent 10th Anniversary celebrations, I wrote about the Sunday Million, and how it first started out in 2006, cementing its position as the premier online poker tournament on the planet.

Here is the Sunday Million story in hard facts:
Total Number of Sunday Million tourneys: 277
First Ever Winner: ‘aaaaaaaa’ (USA)
Total Prize Pool: $442,685,600
Total Entries: 2,109,193

Members of Team PokerStars Pro will be out in force for the Sunday Million 6th Anniversary and a shot at the guaranteed $1 million first prize. Here’s what some of them had to say, including some tips for success:

Bertrand ‘ElkY’ Grospellier
“My favourite memory of the big Sunday tournament on PokerStars is the time I finished 12th. This was my first really deep run in a tournament of this size, and I was so excited. There is a huge Sunday Million on March 11, with $1M guaranteed for first. It may not feel the same for me as the first time I went deep, but I’ll be trying just as hard. See you there.”

Jason Mercier
“When I think of the Sunday Million, I think back to being a 19-21 year old kid, grinding mid-stakes, looking for that big tournament score. I would get excited every week to play the Sunday Million, hoping that would be the day that I would have my first six-figure score.”

Johnny Lodden
“This is one of the few tournaments where you can really score big. I have fun memories of playing the Sunday Million with my buddies, with football games on TV in the background. A friend won a big Sunday tournament in the old days, and first prize was $8,000. A long way from where we are now!”

Liv Boeree
“When playing the Sunday Million, it’s important to be patient. It attracts huge numbers, and in order to navigate your way through, you have to learn to play the waiting game if the cards don’t cooperate.”

Lex Veldhuis
“I like to play really aggressive in the Sunday Million, because there are so many players who wait for this tournament all week, and are too careful with their chips. This allows you to build a big stack early on, and cruise once you have it.”