The final even for the European Poker Tour, its Grand Final festivities, has begun at the Monte Carlo Casino in Monaco and they aren’t going small. In fact, not one but two High Roller events – the single re-entry €10,000 High Roller and the rebuy €100,000 Super High Roller – were in action on Thursday, with one wrapping up its action and the other closing out its first day.
€10,000 High Roller – Day 3
23 players returned on Thursday from the original 214 entries (164 unique), looking to take the first trophy of the EPT Grand Final festival. There were some big names in the field, including Isaac Haxton, Philipp Gruissem, Anthony Zinno, Fedor Holz and Dan Shak, but they were faced with a true conundrum. There was still a nice prize of €439,000 awaiting the champion of this tournament but, with the Super High Roller beginning its Day 1 action as their Day 3 play began, the desire to take part in THAT event had some players wanting to wrap up their stay quickly. As it was, the players did fight pretty hard, whether they had their intentions set on getting into the Super High Roller or not.
Zinno would score the first knockout of the day, waking up with pocket Aces in the big blind when Ozgur Arda shoved his stack with only a K-9 off suit. Holz would keep pace with him a few minutes later, eliminating Diego Ventura when his pocket sixes stood in the race against Ventura’s A-10 off suit. Shak, however, wouldn’t be as fortunate, running his pocket sixes into Chance Kornuth’s pocket Queens to bust Shak from the tournament (a very short lived bust…he immediately ran to the Super High Roller and jumped into the action).
Around mid-afternoon, the final 15 men were determined when, at almost the same time, Pavel Plesuv took out Adrian Mateos and Gruissem knocked off Imad Derwiche. Gruissem’s day would get even better after eliminating Haxton in 15th place, punching his stack up over 1.65 million in chips. But it was a hand against Holz that had the tournament floor talking as late afternoon rolled around.
On a 3♦ 8♦ 7♦ flop, Holz would lead out for 180K and Gruissem, who was intently watching his opponent (according to the PokerStars blog), quickly made the call. Another trey on the turn brought an all-in from Holz and just as quickly a call from Gruissem. “You have Aces?” Holz asked of Gruissem as he showed pocket Kings, who shook his head no and tabled Q♦ 9♦ for the flush. Holz’s reaction? Smashing his remaining chips on the table, where they scattered like matchsticks despite the factor that there was one card left for the board to be complete.
As Holz stormed away from the table, the dealer burned and turned…another trey on the river, giving Holz a miraculous full house to best Gruissem’s flush. After everything was reset, Holz was handed a one round penalty for his actions. Holz probably needed the time to regain his composure and, at the same time, avoid any further issues as the final table was determined (the redraw, in fact, sat Holz and Gruissem beside each other).
Holz would take over the chip lead in knocking off Dmitry Yurasov in ninth place, Holz’s A♠ J♠ nut flush besting Yurasov’s K♠ Q♠ second best on a 6♠ 7♣ Q♥ Q♠ 5♠ board. Taking up the challenge, Gruissem surged back into the final table action, taking two hands from Felipe Ramos that saw the Brazilian hit the rail in seventh place. These two men would be very active, along with Kornuth, as the dinner break arrived.
After the sustenance, Gruissem became even more aggressive but sometimes actually had the cards. He showed Zinno pocket Aces in one instance and, after Zinno fell to Murad Akhundov in sixth and Akhundov himself succumbed to Kornuth in fifth, the final four – Kornuth, Gruissem, Holz and Sergey Lebedev – discussed a deal, which was quickly shot down by Holz. That would prove to be a bad decision by Holz, who might have earned more if he had done the deal rather than what occurred.
A few moments later on a 4-4-2-2-7 board, Kornuth moved in enough chips to put Holz all-in, sending the German deep into the tank. Despite still holding about 1.2 million in chips that would have kept him in the fight, Holz didn’t buy the story that Kornuth was telling him, making the call for his tournament life after several minutes and then trying to muck his cards after seeing Kornuth’s Q-2 (Holz did eventually show a Q-10). The decision not to take the deal versus finishing fourth might have cost Holz tens of thousands of Euros, depending on how the remaining prize pool would have been split four ways.
Down to three, Kornuth, Gruissem and Lebedev did reach a deal, cutting up the prize pool by ICM numbers with the leader Kornuth taking the championship.
1. Chance Kornuth, €351,108*
2. Philipp Gruissem, €299,162*
3. Sergey Lebedev, €292,750*
4. Fedor Holz, €169,000
5. Murad Akhundov, €133,680
6. Anthony Zinno, €101,500
7. Felipe Ramos, €74,100
8. Dmitry Yurasov, €54,180
(* – indicates three-way deal)
€100,000 Super High Roller – Day 1
The Super High Roller didn’t fail to draw a crowd for its opening action, with 44 players taking their seats (and 12 reentries coming from those men). When the last chips were bagged for the day, 38 of those starters still remained in action with Mikita Badziakouski sitting atop the table with almost a million chips beside his name (921,000, to be exact).
1. Mikita Badziakouski, 921,000
2. Max Silver, 785,000
3. Igor Kurganov, 755,000
4. John Juanda, 744,000
5. Ivan Luca, 660,000
6. Dario Sammartino, 651,000
7. Jason Mercier, 629,000
8. Mustapha Kanit, 585,000
9. Byron Kaverman, 534,000
10. Salman Behbehani, 525,000
Final numbers aren’t in on the Super High Roller as of yet due to late registration/reentry not closing until the start of Day 2 on Friday. With 56 entries already on the books, the prize pool is looking pretty rich for this tournament and its eventual champion. The champion will be crowned on Saturday, the same day that the EPT Grand Final Main Event is set to begin.
