"It was ICM Suicide" Says Winner of 2024 THMC Cape Town Million
A winner has been crowned during the 2024 The Hendon Mob Championship Cape Town Million at the GrandWest Casino by Sun International. With a price tag of ZAR 8,000 ($440), one of the key events on the schedule of the final SunBet Poker Tour stop in 2024 doubled it's initial guarantee and generated a ZAR 2,009,280 ($111,193) prize pool thanks to an overall field of 299 entries. The trophy remained on home soil as Muaaz Gani and Sugen Singh agreed to a heads-up deal with the former claiming the bragging rights as narrow chip leader at the time.
Gani would have normally not agreed to a deal but a closer look at the trophy on the final table changed his mind. "Today was actually a day where I really wanted to have that trophy". Runner-up Singh had also cut a deal when he took down the SunBet Poker Tour Time Square Main Event earlier this year and now conceded the same honour for a bigger piece of the pie.
After his victory, Gani explained that the route to victory actually started in rather curious fashion. Having busted the Super High Roller, Gani and Ahmed Karrim headed to the nearby food court to grab some KFC and some noisy neighbours made them return to the poker room where he was presented with the opportunity to max late register for Day 1a. He took a chance and finished the opening flight with the largest tally while Singh was in third place.
Soon after the winner shots had been taken care off, Karrim and the eventual winner discussed the possible destination for the next international trip. As part of his victory, Gani has also earned a 2025 package to any THMC of his choosing and the stop in Dublin during the 2025 Irish Open seems to be the most likely choice.
Third-placed Florian Bock from Germany knows about that kind of additional value, as he won the stop in Malta earlier this year at the Portomaso Casino in a field of 313 entries. Bock was the chip leader during four-handed play but lost a big chunk when he jammed into Gani, who called all-in with ace-queen.
"He scoffed me when I called because it was ICM suicide, but some people just play to play as they say, you know. And this was just one of the spots where I wasn't interested in folding a big hand for an ICM jump. I was shorter than him at the time and that was a big hand to win, it was quite a decisive moment in this tournament," Gani explained the pivotal moment that turned things around.
Bock went on to finish in third place, while other notables such as Marko Nortje, Cliton Taliwanth and Wesley Blom also reached the final table.
2024 THMC Cape Town Million Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Country | Prize (ZAR) | Prize (USD) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Muaaz Gani | South Africa | 380,000 | $21,029* |
| 2 | Sugen Singh | South Africa | 350,000 | $19,369* |
| 3 | Florian Bock | Germany | 197,000 | $10,902 |
| 4 | Renier Britz | South Africa | 140,000 | $7,748 |
| 5 | Marko Nortje | South Africa | 100,280 | $5,549 |
| 6 | Cliton Taliwanth | South Africa | 80,000 | $4,427 |
| 7 | Clive Kikia | South Africa | 60,000 | $3,320 |
| 8 | Wesley Blom | South Africa | 50,000 | $2,767 |
| 9 | Braam Van Huyssteen | South Africa | 40,000 | $2,214 |
*Denotes heads-up deal
Across three starting days, 39 players qualified for the money stages and most of the contenders hailed from the home country, many of which have become regular participants in Africas Richest Poker Tour. During the frantic first two hours, the field of hopefuls was nearly cut in half and only 20 players were left by the time the first break started.
Jaryd Jardien was among the early casualties and the UK's Max Deveson vanished from the feature table shortly after being moved back there. Two double eliminations had thinned the line-up there further. Eventual runner-up Singh for example knocked out Rajeev Poonhath and Greg Mokgoathleng to gain early momentum. Jehan Richards then had a bad beat story to tell on the outer tables after his pocket aces were cracked by pocket tens.
The second two-hour session was not much slower and brought the field all the way to the nine-handed final table. Jedd Kossew and Jaco Mouton were among those to bow out, the latter running with pocket kings into the pocket aces of Singh. Nellie Park and flag hunting poker globetrotter Maureen Bloechlinger were next hit the rail. Bock then knocked out Gerhard Oosthuizen and Edgar Antezana to set up the final nine second in chips.
Despite starting the final table with just over one big blind, Cliton Taliwanth was not the first to depart thereafter. He made three pay jumps thanks to the eliminations of Braam Van Huyssteen, Wesley Blom and Clive Kikia before his luck ran out. Kikia ran with king-queen into the aces of Bock and Taliwanth's queen-jack suited suffered the same fate versus Renier Britz.
Nortje was one of the main characters of the day, which he started atop the leaderboard and his roller coaster ride ended in fifth place. Having escaped via one-outer right after the dinner break, he lost the next showdown to Bock. Britz's attempt at a comeback was flushed away by Gani, who then jumped into the lead thanks to the aforementioned key hand. Bock never recovered and departed in third place, which was the final hand of the night on the live-stream feature table.
For The Hendon Mob Championship, the live poker year 2024 is not finished yet as the next stop is right around the corner. After a five year hiatus, the live poker series returns to the Aspers Casino Westfield Stratford and teams up with the Unibet DeepStack Open (USDO) from December 3 to 8, 2024. Furthermore, Head of Partnerships at GPI/The Hendon Mob Roland Boothby announced during the event in Cape Town that the brand will return in 2025 with an increased guarantee.
