With both events whittling their fields down to the final players, the champions will be determined today at the European Poker Tour London Main Event and the High Roller championship.
In the Main Event, play ended yesterday with the elimination of Adria Balaguer in ninth place. Five players, including Balaguer, saw a 10-7-7 flop and, after checking to him, Balaguer might have been happy to see Day Four chip leader Mattias Bergstrom slide out a 200K bet. After Balaguer raised all in for his last 1.5 million, he probably wasn’t pleased to see Martins Adeniya make the call as Bergstrom got out of the way. Although Balaguer had hit the flop hard with his A-7, Adeniya hit it even harder with his pocket tens. After an uneventful turn and river, Balaguer was out in ninth and Adeniya took the chip lead.
Although he held a 1.3 million chip lead over Benny Spindler, Adeniya’s stay at the final table earlier today didn’t last long. After Miroslav Benes was eliminated in eighth place, Adeniya would collapse at the final table at the hands of Spindler. The British pro had been able to pass Adeniya for the lead when the duo locked up in a pre-flop battle. Adeniya, holding A-K, would call off the remainder of his chips after Spindler (pocket tens) put out a huge bet. The board would bring no help to Adeniya and he would go from the top of the mountain to out of the tournament in seventh place.
Spindler, as a result of that huge pot, surged to the lead and he has been wielding his chip stack like a club. He has just recently eliminated the United States’ Kevin Iacofano when, holding a suited 8-7 against Iacofano’s Q-10, he flopped the joint (9-6-5) for a nearly unbeatable straight against Iacofano. Once the turn card didn’t bring the first part of a saving runner-runner for him, Kevin Iacofano was out in sixth place.
As play continues, here are the most recent standings:
1. Benny Spindler 10,000,000
2. Andre Klebanov 3,775,000
3. Mattias Bergstrom 3,090,000
4. Juan Manuel Pastor 2,130,000
5. Steve O’Dwyer 2,080,000
Drawing a great deal of attention away from the EPT Main Event final table is the £20,000 High Roller final table. The final table of eight players was determined last night with the elimination of defending World Series of Poker Europe champion James Bord in ninth place. Originally planned to be the bubble position, the players decided to save £25K back for the position to speed up play, so Bord did earn something for his two days of work.
Igor Kurganov came to the final table this afternoon in London with 854K in chips, good enough for the lead, but a host of talented competition was waiting for him. Pros Sam Trickett, Olivier Busquet and Michael Tureneic were just some of the opposition, but Rob Akery was perhaps his biggest threat, sitting in second place with his 622K stack.
On the very first hand of play, Tureneic would be the first casualty at the hands of Busquet. Trickett would drop about an hour later when his suited K-J couldn’t catch up against Kurganov’s suited A-9. Once Joel Nordkvist (sixth) and Adrian Bussman (fifth) were eliminated, the remaining four men stopped play to discuss a deal.
According to the PokerStars blog, Philipp Gruissem (£202K), Kurganov (£197K), Akery (£186.5K) and Busquet (£171K) divvied up part of the remaining prize pool, saving back some money for the top three positions. After the deal was struck, play resumed with the leaderboard as such:
1. Philipp Gruissem (Germany) 1.285 million
2. Igor Kurganov (Germany) 1.12 million
3. Robert Akery (United Kingdom) 868,000
4. Olivier Busquet (United States) 552,000
There’s plenty of excitement left as the champions are determined in two of the most prestigious events on the European Poker Tour schedule. Poker News Daily will have a full recap of the action tomorrow.
