What was expected to be a quick Day Five that would determine the final table turned out to be a long battle at the European Poker Tour stop in Berlin, Germany, on Friday.
The final 17 men came to the felt on Friday with Roman Herold holding a decent lead over the field with his 4.485 million stack. His closest competitor, Dashgyn Aliev, was sitting on 3.931 million, but the rest of the field was almost two million chips behind Herold. The players would get to work rather quickly with a couple of surprising dismissals before the final table was determined.
Coming to the tables on Friday just under the Top Ten was former EPT champion Kevin Stani, but it wasn’t to be his day. Herold would chop some chips from Stani when he swung his big stack with an all-in move that Stani couldn’t call and he never make a significant comeback from that. The same two players would clash a bit later, with the chips going in pre-flop, and Stani found himself looking at Herold’s Big Slick while holding A-J. The situation changed on the flop, with a Jack hitting the baize, but a King on the turn switched the situation back in Herold’s favor. When the river missed Stani’s Jack, he was gone from the tournament in 17th place and Herold rocketed over the five million chip mark.
After Philippe Barouk was eliminated in 16th place, Olivier Busquet was the next to leave the festivities. Busquet had his stack decimated in the early going but was able to work his way back up to 500K in chips before battling against Yasar Guden. After Guden opened the action, Busquet would make his move and, once Guden made the call, found himself in great shape. His A♥ 10♥ was ahead of Guden’s K♥ Q♥ and things looked even better when a ten appeared in the window. Once the flop was fanned, however, there was a King also to put Guden up in the hand. After the turn and river failed to bring an Ace or another ten, Busquet was out in 15th place.
Over the next few hours, the players would work down to the final nine players, one short of the EPT eight handed final table. At this point, Lasse Frost had been able to work his way into the lead, while Herold was a close second. After making a move to the top of the ladder on the way to nine-handed play, Aliev would drop back a bit, finding himself behind Pascal Vos and Robert Haigh in the middle of the pack. While some thought the determination of the final table would be a quick affair, it actually turned out to be one of the longer battles in recent memory.
Over the course of the six hour final table bubble battle, many of the contested pots were taken with pre-flop bets that went unchallenged. When there was an all-in, fortune seemed to be on the side of the all-in player, getting that key double up to continue on in the fight. During this time, Haigh was able to work his way further up the leaderboard to challenge Frost for the tournament lead, eventually slipping past him to take the top slot.
It would all come to an end for the exhausted combatants as Alexander Helbig and Aliev decided to finish the night. After Haigh made the opening bet, Aliev would move all in from the small blind to put his tournament on the line. Instead of getting out of the way in the big blind, Helbig instead pushed over Aliev’s stack, which was enough to get Haigh to get out of the way. When the cards were tabled, it was easy to see why Helbig had made his move; his pocket Queens were in the lead over Aliev’s A-Q off suit and, once the board came Jack high, the marathon bubble battle for the final table was over to set up today’s action:
1. Robert Haigh, 5.495 million
2. Daniel-Gai Pidun, 5.25 million
3. Lasse Frost, 3.7 million
4. Alexander Helbig, 3.315 million
5. Roman Herold, 3.05 million
6. Roman Korenev, 2.995 million
7. Pascal Vos, 1.75 million
8. Julian Thomas, 1.735 million
There is an excellent chance that the eventual champion of the EPT Berlin will be waving the German flag later on Saturday. Of the eight men who will contest the championship, five of them claim Germany as their home country, with Denmark (Frost), Russia (Korenev) and the Netherlands (Vos) claiming the other seats.
The final table action will be beginning shortly as the next to last championship on the EPT’s Season Nine schedule is determined. By the time the competition is completed this evening, one man will lay claim to being the latest champion on the EPT as well as taking home the €880,000 first place prize.
