Updated on 22 Feb 26 by
Barry carter
Poker Expert

Russian player wins first $1.2 million Spin & Go

The biggest prize ever for a single table tournament was awarded last night.

Following in the footsteps of his countryman maratik, a Russian PokerStars player has turned a very small buy-in into seven-figures. 

The prize pools for these tournaments are random and as part of an ongoing December & January festival, three out of every 10,000,000 $5 Spin & Go tournaments will compete for a $1,200,000 prize pool. Not bad for a three handed hyper turbo. 

$1 million would go to the winner, with $100,000 each to the runners-up (Normally Spin & Go tournaments are winner take all). Despite the hyper turbo format, the tournament last night lasted a cagey 13 minutes. 

1 million Spin & Go
The winning hand

The eventual winner was 'sss66666' from Russia, who pocketed the $1 million. 'geldduvel' of Belgium finished second and 'Nonko999' from Bulgaria third - both collecting $100,000. 

The Russian winner prior to this game had an average SNG buy-in of just $0.23, so to say this is a life changing win is an understatement. 

sss66666
The winner's new Sharkscope page

The million dollar Spin & Go promotion continues for the rest of January on PokerStars

Would you be delighted at coming 2nd or 3rd for $100k for a $5 buy-in, or totally devastated at missing out on the million? Let us know in the comments. 

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Poker Expert

Barry Carter is the editor of PokerStrategy.com and the co-author of The Mental Game of Poker 1 & 2, Poker Satellite Strategy, PKO Poker Strategy, Endgame Poker Strategy, GTO Poker Simplified, Mystery Bounty Poker Strategy and Beyond GTO. In 2025, he won the Global Poker Awards for Best Book and Twitter Personality of the Year.