Over the Easter weekend, the inaugural running of the Everest Poker ONE took place, with Germany’s Julien Kabitzke emerging with the title in hand.
The tournament, which started Friday at the Salle des Palmiers in Monaco, drew a respectable field of 221 players from around the world. Kevin “ImaLuckSac” MacPhee represented the United States, while Canada’s Isabelle Mercier carried the flag for her country. The Team Everest Pros were also out in full force, headed by French poker legend Fabrice Soulier, but only Spain’s Maria Maceiras and France’s Leo Truche survived Day 1.
Twenty-one players from the field would take their share of the €1,071,850 prize pool. Noted Finnish pro Jani Sointula scraped his way into the money by finishing in 21st place, good for a €10,000 payday in the €5,000 buy in tournament. Maceiras was unable to make the final table, but took home €14,000 for her 15th place finish. At stake for the nine who made the final table was a first place prize of €300,000.
At the start of the final table on Sunday afternoon in Monaco, German players dominated the top of the leaderboard. Chip leader Alexander Debus held 1.6 million, but joining him in the million-chip club were fellow compatriots Marc Sander (1.4 million) and Kabitzke (1.2 million). After a huge pot in the first level of play at the final table, Debus expanded his lead over Kabitzke to 5:2.
Then, Kabitzke, holding pocket queens, and Sander, holding A-K, got the chips to the center pre-flop for an old-fashioned race. The flop was uneventful, but an ace on the turn gave Sander the lead in the hand. Drawing to two outs, Kabitzke’s prayers were answered when a queen hit the river, sending Sander, who held the second largest chip stack at the start of the day, out of the tournament in eighth place.
Another explosive hand resulted in the departure of the United Kingdom’s Adrian Ashton. After initially raising it up to 55,000, Ashton faced a three-bet and aggressively moved all-in. After the call, Ashton tabled pocket sevens against his opponent’s pocket nines. A miraculous seven came on the flop, moving Ashton to the lead. It was a short-lived lead, however, as a nine came on the turn to trump Ashton’s set. Once the case seven failed to appear on the river, Ashton was dumped from the Everest Poker ONE event in seventh place.
Australia’s Joel Dobbs and France’s Julien Pouchain represented the online qualifiers at the final table and a clash between the two resulted in the next knockout. Pouchain looked for a double up with pocket queens against Dobbs’ suited A-J. After fading the flop, Pouchain could not dodge the turn ace, which gave Dobbs the lead. Failing to hit one of the two queens remaining in the deck, Pouchain was eliminated in sixth place.
Dobbs turned out to be the major story of the Everest Poker ONE tournament, coming from the second lowest chip stack at the start of the final table to contend for the title. He surged into third place after Pouchain’s elimination, but could not grind any closer to Kabitzke and Debus. After Kabitzke was able to knock out Dobbs, heads-up play began with Debus holding the lead.
Over the span of the next hour-and-a-half, the two Germans battled valiantly to capture the Everest Poker ONE championship. Gradually, however, Kabitzke was able to ease into the lead before delivering the coup d’etat. With Kabitzke holding pocket queens on an innocuous 10-8-3 board, Debus attempted to push him off the hand while holding top pair with 10-7. After Kabitzke’s call, a four on the turn and a river nine delivered the championship to Kabitzke.
1. Julien Kabitzke (Germany) – €300,000
2. Alexander Debus (Germany) – €170,000
3. Joel Dodds (Australia) – €112,000
4. Alessio Isaia (Italy) – €90,000
5. Xavier Carruggi (France) – €75,000
6. Julien Pouchain (France) – €58,000
7. Adrian Aston (United Kingdom) – €47,500
8. Marc Sander (Germany) – €37,000
9. Manuel Bevand (France) – €26,350
Following his run, Kabitzke thanked the tournament staff and Everest Poker: “Everest Poker organized a very nice tournament. It was comfortable to play, high quality dealers and obviously the good card run helped a lot. I really enjoyed it.”
