Over the weekend, Sebastian Ruthenberg, a PokerStars sponsored player, made his employers proud by taking down the European Poker Tour’s Barcelona event. He navigated the 618 player field en route to a €1,360,100 payday, the largest of his highly successful EPT career. The next tournament on the EPT slate takes place in London.
Ruthenberg finished third in the EPT German Open during Season 3, cashing for €220,000. He finished 10th in the Baden Classic during Season 4 for €38,600 and also recorded a cash at the Warsaw event that year. Ruthenberg joined Team PokerStars Pro in early 2008 and responded by capturing a bracelet in the $5,000 buy-in World Championship of Seven Card Stud High-Low Split Eight or Better at the World Series of Poker. His WSOP win was worth $328,756. At the final table of that tournament was a star-studded field of accomplished poker pros, including Full Tilt Poker ambassador Chris Ferguson, Ultimate Bet tournament consultant Annie Duke, and Marcel Luske.
Ruthenberg entered the final table second in chips with 1.20 million, barely trailing chip leader Martin Nelson’s stack of 1.23 million. Heads-up, Ruthenberg defeated Fintan Gavin, who cashed in last year’s Aussie Millions Main Event. Gavin is a native of Galway, Ireland and is around poker every day as the card room manager of the Eglinto Casino. He qualified online for the EPT Barcelona event and has played poker for the past 30 years.
Davidi Kitai finished 11th in last year’s EPT Barcelona final table, cashing for €46,000. This year, he fared much better, landing in third place and taking home €455,000. Kitai won a $2,000 buy-in Pot Limit Hold’em event at the 2008 WSOP, capturing his first bracelet and boosting his bankroll by $244,583. Kitai wasn’t done there, however. Eight events later, he reached the final table of a $5,000 buy-in Six-Handed No Limit Hold’em tournament, this time taking home $120,693 for sixth place. Kitai went down in the record books as the first ever WSOP bracelet winner from Belgium.
Also reaching the final table of EPT Barcelona was Jason Mercier. When the smoke cleared, he landed in sixth place for €227,000. Mercier won the European Poker Tour’s San Remo event during Season 4, cashing for €869,000. That tournament featured a final table that included Antony Lellouche, Dario Minieri, Eric Koskas, and Gregory Genovese.
Rounding out the EPT Barcelona final table were Dren Ukella (Cologne, Germany), Sam Chartier (Montreal, Canada), and Daniele Mazzia (Imperia, Italy). The EPT now heads to London, where PokerStars is adding £250,000 to the prize pool in order to create a £1 million guaranteed first prize. This is the first time that any EPT event has boasted a guaranteed payout to an event’s winner. In addition, a £1 Million Showdown will occur, which has a buy-in of £20,300 (over $40,000). That tournament begins on October 5th, four days after the start of the £5,400 buy-in EPT London event.
Season 3 EPT London winner Vicky Coren, a Team PokerStars Pro member, will be on-hand for the upcoming event. In addition, expect Daniel Negreanu, Vanessa Rousso, Chad Brown and Isabelle Mercier, Barry Greenstein, and Alex Kravchenko to participate on behalf of Team PokerStars. The online poker site will be running qualifiers to the EPT London and £1 Million Showdown.
