The World Poker Tour’s 2013 calendar year has come to a conclusion after events in both Prague and Korea determined their champions.
The WPT Prague concluded this afternoon at the Card Casino in the capital city of the Czech Republic. The six survivors from the 284 player starting field featured something for everyone in the poker community; there was an older, solid player in Gintaras Simaitis, youth in 22-year old Valeri Savov, and representatives of the European professional poker community in Andrey Shatilov, Julian Thomas, Vasili Firsau and Ognjen Sekularac. Firsau and Sekularac, in particular, had previous experience in making WPT final table, while the remainder of the group was enjoying their first venture there.
After some preliminary jousting, Savov and Simaitis clashed in a hand that would leave the table five handed. Simaitis fired an initial bet pre-flop and Savov three bet the action to 115,000. Undaunted, Simaitis fired back with a four bet to 270K and Savov, who stated before the final table began that he “didn’t like folding,” responded by moving all in. Simaitis called immediately, turning up his pocket Aces against a dejected Savov’s pocket Kings. The Queen-high board never threatened Simaitis and eliminated Savov in sixth place.
Sekularac had (other than Savov) probably the worst time on the final table. After starting as one of the chip leaders, Sekularac’s chips gradually bled from his stack to the point he was pushing all in frequently in an attempt to catch up. It would work until the last time when, on an 8-6-Q-8-A board, Sekularac moved all in and Firsau beat him into the pot with the call, tabling an 8-7 for turned trips. Sekularac attempted to muck his hand but it was turned up; all he held was a 7-4 for a busted gut shot straight draw (and not much else) as he exited the tournament floor in fifth place.
At this point, Firsau had pulled out to a 1.5 million chip lead over his three opponents, who were all within 200K in chips of each other. The men would play through a complete level with not much change in the leaderboard, but eventually something had to break. That came when Simaitis and Thomas clashed pre-flop, with Simaitis holding only an A-8 and at risk against Thomas’ pocket Queens. Five cards later, with none of the cards helping Simaitis, he was out of the tournament in fourth place and Thomas moved up to challenge Firsau.
Only a few hands later, the tournament quickly came to a conclusion. The first hand saw a three-way all-in situation, with Thomas’ pocket Aces holding the edge over Firsau’s pocket Jacks and Shatilov’s Q-10. After a nine-high board rolled out, the chips were counted down; Shatilov was out of the tournament in third place and Firsau was left with only 530K in chips as the 8.65 million chip pot was pushed to Thomas. Two hands later, Thomas completed his victory by squashing Firsau’s Q-10 with Big Slick to win the championship.
1. Julian Thomas, $283,827
2. Vasili Firsau, 185,796
3. Andrey Shatilov, 116,982
4. Gintaras Simaitis, 86,703
5. Ognjen Sekularac, 64,683
6. Valeri Savov, $52,297
On Thursday, the inaugural stop by the WPT in South Korea saw Masato Yokosawa quickly pass chip leader Chane Kampanatsanyakorn and storm to the title at the Ramada Plaza Jeju.
Kampanatsanyakorn lost the lead within the first dozen hands of action and was actually the first player to depart the six-handed final table after losing out to Chris Park’s pocket fives. Yokosawa held over half the chips in play after Kampanatsanyakorn’s elimination and settled in to see who he would face heads up. It turned out that player would be Park, who eliminated three players at the final table but would never get past Yokosawa.
On the final hand in Korea, Park aggressively bet every street of a 10-8-5-5-2 board, eventually getting his final chips in on the river. He would show an A-10 for two pair, but Yokosawa turned up a slow-played 6-5 for turned trip fives to take the title.
1. Masato Yokosawa, $100,000
2. Chris Park, $60,700
3. Hyunshik Hun, $38,500
4. Kosei Ichinose, $28,500
5. Jae Kyung Sim, $21,400
6. Chane Kampanatsanyakorn, $17,100
With the end of these two tournaments, the WPT will go on an extended break. The tour will not continue its Season XII schedule until late January, when the Borgata in Atlantic City, NJ, will play host to the WPT Borgata Winter Poker Open from January 26-31. Historically the Borgata brings out large fields for that tournament and this year it may challenge for one of the largest tournaments of all-time on the WPT.
