The first bracelet awarded at WSOP Paradise has gone to Brazil’s Allan Melo, who has won the $1,500 Millionaire Maker event.
The WSOP Paradise incarnation of the popular Millionaire Maker format, which guarantees a first prize of $1 million (and in this case a $5 million guaranteed prize pool), saw its Day 1 take place online on GGPoker. 3,496 players took part in the online Day 1, creating a total prize pool of $5,233,000.
When the final 100 players convened at Atlantis to play down to a winner, each was already in the money to the tune of at least $5,000.
Mello emerges victorious from lengthy heads-up duel
Primarily an online player, Mello managed to navigate a head-up battle with Ukraine’s Nazar Buhaiov that lasted several hours, during which the lead changed hands multiple times. The key hand came when Buhaiov tried to bluff the river with air, only for Mello to make the hero call holding only third pair.
Mello’s rungood throughout the day included cracking the aces of Leon Sturm, flopping a set of tens which improved to quads on the river. He also had to work his way past US player Roland Israelashvili, who holds the record for the most World Series cashes; the $50k he picked up for his 9th place finish was his 464th WSOP cash, though he’s still to book his first win.
The $1 million win marks Mello’s biggest live cash of his career, as well as his first WSOP bracelet. Here's how the final table ended up:
| Place | Player | Country | Prize(USD) |
| 1 | Allan Melo | Brazil | $1,000,000 |
| 2 | Nazar Buhaiov | Ukraine | $593,500 |
| 3 | Morten Norland | Norway | $263,500 |
| 4 | Maksim Vaskresenski | Poland | $158,500 |
| 5 | Maxime Parys | France | $128,000 |
| 6 | Clemen Deng | United States | $103,500 |
| 7 | Kasparas Klezys | Lithuania | $81,100 |
| 8 | Arnaud Enselme | France | $65,000 |
| 9 | Roland Israelashvili | United States | $50,000 |
More events daily until December 14
Mello's bracelet was the first to be awarded at WSOP Paradise, but the Millionaire Maker is actually event #2 on the schedule. The first event to kick off was #1, the Mystery Millions, with five starting flights that began on Sunday, December 3. A number of notable names have already booked safe passage through to Day 2, including Phil Hellmuth, Chino Rheem, Koray Aldemir, Dylan Linde and Allen Kessler.
The final chance to qualify for Day 2 is just around the corner, with Day 1E starting today at 10am local time. Day 2 itself is scheduled to start this afternoon, at 4:40pm. The livestreaming schedule is due to start tomorrow, running through to the climax of the series on December 14.
Stay with PokerOrg for more from WSOP Paradise this week, including news from the Main Event, High Roller and Super High Roller tournaments.
Images courtesy of the WSOP
