Generally regarded as one of the best to ever play the game of online poker, Niklas ‘Lena900’ Astedt (above) has fought his way to a prime position to claim one of the year’s biggest scalps in PokerStars’ 20th Anniversary Sunday Million.
After weeks of daily $109 Phase 1 tournaments the field finally came together on Sunday, September 6 for the final Phase 2. 1,763 started the day, with just 49 progressing to Monday’s ultimate finale.
The final 49 are led by ‘RageReaperf’, a former Spring Championship Of Online Poker (SCOOP) winner from Finland, who brings a stack of 28.3 million chips into the final day, when play will resume at the 175K/350K blind level (with a 45K ante).
Nestled closely behind, in 6th with 19.6 million, is Astedt.
The first Phase 1 tournaments began in late June.All hinges on the final day
The tourney has a $5M guarantee, but a good portion of that is paid out as progressive bounties for eliminating opponents. As a result, much of the prizepool has already been paid out, but there remains some huge prizes to be won with much resting on the final day.
The next player out in 49th will receive just $924, while the winner will take down $176K. And that’s before factoring in progressive bounties: 50% of every player’s bounty is immediately won by the player knocking them out, while the other 50% is added to that player’s own bounty.
The final elimination, therefore, will come with a very healthy bounty prize — in effect, the difference between first and second place, as both pay $176K from the regular prizepool.
Heading into the final session, the biggest bounty accumulated so far is $8.4K, by a Ukrainian player with the catchy name of ‘234241234214432’. Astedt has built up the 4th largest bounty so far of $6.7K.
Sunday Million 20th Anniversary Edition — Final table payouts (excl. bounties)
- $176,310
- $176,310
- $109,853
- $68,980
- $44,028
- $25,833
- $16,711
- $10,834
- $6,802
Who is Niklas Astedt?
Astedt, of Sweden, is believed to be the biggest winner in the history of online poker. He has won multiple SCOOP and WCOOP (World Championship of Online Poker) titles — sometimes on the same day — on his way to accumulating around $50 million in online winnings.
In 2024 Astedt, right, almost won the biggest tournament in all of poker: the WSOP Main Event.His skills are not just limited to the online game, either. He has live career tournament earnings of almost $10 million, boosted considerably by his deep run in the WSOP Main Event in 2024, when he finished 3rd for $3M.
2026 has also seen him notch some more big live scores, including a super high roller victory at EPT Paris (€625K), a final table run in the WSOP Europe Super High Roller (€245K), and a runner-up finish in another super high roller at EPT Barcelona (€522K).
The finale of the Sunday Million 20th Anniversary edition plays out from 9:05pm CEST on Monday, September 7.
Want to play next week’s event, when the guaranteed prizepool will be back to its regular level of ‘just’ $1 million? Head to PokerStars to sign up.
