By Lisa Yiasemides
What a night of poker WPT and partypoker put on yesterday evening! Twelve games were on the menu, with everything from small to super high roller stakes to choose from, plus everything in between. In fact, there were two $25K events that took place when a one-day SHR event popped up to play alongside the High Roller Championship.
The penultimate championship trophy will be awarded tonight, plus three winners in the Closer events will emerge as Day 2 concludes the action in each. Before looking at how those events are progressing, let’s first cast the spotlight on the nine WPT title-holders who made themselves known last night.
Yesterday’s winners
$25,500 Super High Roller ($1M GTD)
It was a little over six and a half hours for this tournament to play down to a winner. Russian crusher Artur Martirosian’s name is one that features regularly in the highest payout levels of the highest buy-in comps and he did it again last night, coming first out of an extremely tough field. The result? A $377,000 payday, which amounted to more than a third of the total prize pool.
Artur Martirosian
Polish online star Wiktor Malinowski did his best to stop him but fell at the last to take the runner up position. It was a fantastic evening for him despite missing out on the top spot, with Malinowski almost a quarter of a million dollars richer for his efforts.
Samuel Vousden and Steve O’Dwyer both added a second result to their resume after both taking down a win within the last few days, O’Dwyer notably in the Heads Up Championship. Sam Greenwood was also on the final table, making one ladder after Pascal Lefrancois ($57,400) busted in 6th place. The Canadian did well to outlast Stephen Chidwick who left with nothing after bubbling in 7th place.
$10,300 High Roller ($500K GTD)
Another huge one-day event took place last night, this one featuring 12-minute blind levels that made for a relatively short (for this series at least) runtime of five hours. There may have been a bigger field size of 51 in this event, compared with 38 in the previous, but the crossover in the two games was significant, with every single player who cashed in this event a runner in the SHR too.
The only one who managed to cash in both was Pascal Lefrancois (9th, $20,910), who picked up his second min-cash of the night. His survival to the money stages came at the expense of Roberto Romanello who bubbled in 10th place. Ike Haxton (8th) picked up the same amount of cash as Lefrancois, before the ladders started to increase with each elimination. Elias Talvitie (7th, $22,440) and Kahle Burns (6th, $26,265) busted next, deciding the top five. Charlie Godwin ($32,895) came unstuck in fifth, finishing just behind countryman Stephen Chidwick ($46,410) in fourth, and the last representative of team partypoker Mikita Badziakouski ($72,420) who exited in third.
Ole Schemion
Two titans of the game went head to head at this point and this time the title and trophy go to Ole Schemion after he eliminated David Peters to end it. Both players collected a handsome six-figure payday with the WPT Champion taking $158,100 and Peters $109,650 richer for his result.
$5,200 Big Game ($1M GTD)
The last of this series’ Big Game events have rounded up now and in the biggest buy-in of the three, Germany’s Marius Gierse was the one to win it and banking $200,424 for doing so. He outlasted some formidable opponents along the way too, including last night’s SHR winner Artur Martirosian who was first to hit the rail, winning $20,880 for ninth place.
Marius Gierse
Aleksandr Nosov (8th, $25,096) was next out the door and Ike Haxton (7th, $32,625) only managed one better. Slovenia’s Rok Gostisa’s (6th, $42,162) departure locked up a top-five finish for the rest of the hopefuls. WPT Champion Scott Margereson (5th, $55,212), online legend Benjamin ‘bencb789’ Rolle (4th, $78,301) and German pro Jan-Eric Schwippert (3rd, $104,602) came unstuck, with the latter going home with the first of the six-figure cashes.
That left two of the 200 starters and despite a valiant effort, Sweden’s Sven Joakim Andersson couldn’t quite go the distance, taking a hefty $146,613 for placing runner up.
$530 Mini Big Game ($300K GTD)
Benjamin Chalot has added a WPT title to his achievements after taking down the $530 event. The Frenchman, who won the partypoker Millions Online event in December last year, collected $55,222 for coming out on top of the 576-strong field, lifting the trophy after picking off Jonathan Therme ($39,331) who had to settle for second place.
The big names didn’t end there with Jeffrey Reardon placing third out of the nine finalists. He banked $26,811, while Tomás Paiva ($18,750) and Jelmer De Visser ($13,200) took fourth and fifth spots, going further than Jesse Johnston (6th, 9,540), Janis Loze (7th, $6,870), Elvis Arzic (8th, $5,565) and Tom Delaine (9th, $4,710) were able to.
$55 Micro Big Game ($100K GTD)
Alan Octavio Obaya Flores ($16,640) has done extremely well to be the last player standing out of 1,704 entries. Last night 39 returned and it took Flores five hours of poker to see off the last opponent in his way, Anton Kotliar ($11,832), to take first place.
Though they were the only two players to score a five-figure sum, they weren’t the only big winners with Hristo Vasilev Genov ($7,688), Kleber Gregolon ($5,190) and Andrei Piankouski ($3,680) all seeing great returns for the relatively modest buy-in.
$215 7-Max ($50K GTD)
French grinder Léo Du Boisbaudry ($10,379) was the victor in the 7-Max main event. A total of 249 entries took part and with a 15-minute blind structure, it would be more than nine hours of play until Du Boisbaudry lifted the trophy. Daniel Pizarro ($7,400) had a great night too, taking runner up in the end.
There were plenty of notable names in the mix. Viktor Ustimov (7th, $1,436) reached the final table, as did Patrick Hyllegaard Pedersen (8th, $1,170). Things have been going well for Pedersen recently, with this result coming off the back of his third-place finish in the $320 Mini Turbo Championship on Sunday.
Josip Simunic won a $455 min-cash for placing 29th, with 35 players paid. Finland’s Mathias Siljander was the unfortunate bubble boy when he hit the rail in 36th place.
$22 Mini 7-Max ($20K GTD)
There was no shortage of runners in the mini event, with 1,547 stepping up to play including re-entries. That meant a prize pool of $30,940 was created, easily surpassing the guarantee. It took one minute short of ten hours for Nicholas Marshall to go the distance and the Brit banked the top prize of $5,048, with Luke Wozniak collecting the runner up cash of $3,438.
$215 Mix-Max Turbo PKO ($50K GTD)
In the larger of the two turbo PKO comps, it was Argentina versus the Netherlands in a heads-up battle that rounded off a tournament featuring 245 buy-ins. Sebastian Wartensleben ($4,455 + $4,515) defeated Yassine Rachdi ($4,450 + $2,357). Rachdi may have knocked out more opponents (11 compared with five), but Wartensleben took the last two and that meant more than $2,000 in bounty winnings separated them by the end.
Brian J Cunningham (3rd, $3,088 + $700), Mary Pudmoreff (4th, $2,260 + $1,668) and WPTDeepStacks Champion Upeshka De Silva (5th, $1,645 + $478) were in the top five, with Mariusz Lewoniewski (6th, $1,227 + $600) and Maxim Zakradze (7th, $898 + $287) taking the last of the final table seats.
Michael Sklenička (9th, $680 + $306), Leonard Oliver Maue (15th, $295 + $175), Flavio Reis (17th, $295 + $100) and Luigi Andrea Shehadeh (28th, $236 + $100) were also in the mix, making it into the top 30 places paid.
$22 Mini Mix-Max Turbo PKO ($20K GTD)
The final trophy of the evening was awarded to Viktor Gulin ($1,394 + $1,799). The Russian secured the title, beating Julian Selinger ($1,391 + $294) heads up to round off five and a half hours of action that saw a 1,108-strong field become one.
Concludes tonight
Event #10: $25,500 High Roller Championship ($5M GTD)
It was time for Day 2 last night after two starting flights saw a total of 199 entries (including re-entries) have a go at that incredible $5,000,000 million prize pool. Twenty-eight had made it through to the second stage and with a 7-Max format, the clock wouldn’t pause until that many players remained.
Despite needing to lose three-quarters of the field, it would only take three and a half hours for the final table set up to be confirmed. Day 2 continued in the money, with all 28 players guaranteed at least $56,750 and Stephen Chidwick (27th), Jans Arends (26th) and Andras Nemeth (23rd) were among those who were unable to improve on that.
Online specialist Wiktor Malinowski (21st) was the first player to make a ladder and he, along with Ludo Geilich (19th), Ole Schemion (17th), Daniel Dvoress (16th) and Simon Trumper (15th) all won $68,000 for their respective finishes.
Pascal Hartmann (14th), Big Game winner Marius Gierse (13th) and Rui Ferreira (12th) all collected $84,000, leaving all remaining hopefuls with at least a six-figure score. Kahle Burns (11th) and Jake Schindler (10th) were the next casualties, winning $102,500. Timothy Adams (9th) and Brock Wilson (8th) departed just before the end, each padding their bankrolls with $126,500.
That means all those still in with a shot could win anything from $155,060 but they will all have the $1,094,460 top prize firmly in their sights when they return to play at 7:05 pm (BST) tonight. Second place receives $779,19 and third gets $549,793 unless any deals are agreed on.
Mikita Badziakouski is one of two players flying the partypoker flag, bringing 4,750,685 chips through, which is good for the chip lead. Blinds start at Level 5 (15,000/30,000 3,750 ante), and this is a very deep-stacked final table.
Mikita Badziakouski
Aleksei Barkov (3,703,733) has 123 big blinds, Alexandros Kolonias (3,673,742) has 122 and the second Team partypoker finalist Jason Koon (3,420,295), has 114, so plenty of play is expected, particularly as blind levels are 40-minutes long. Even Mark Demirjian (1,997,915), Daniel Rezaei (1,630,432) and Ali Imsirovic (723,198) have 66, 54 and 24 big blinds to play with, which hardly make them worthy of the title ‘short-stacks’.
The final will be streamed on partypoker’s Twitch channel, where you can enjoy cards up coverage so you can sweat with the best!
$1,050 Closer ($150K GTD)
Last up are the Closer tournaments, both of which play down to a winner this evening too. Teun Mulder (1,745,225) has been having a great series and he is in fantastic shape to add another chunky win to his haul as he starts with the chip lead. He has already doubled his money with $2,125 bagged in bounties. Second chip leader Artsiom Prostak (1,522,398) has done the same, already in the black with $2,781 from bounties.
A total of 20 players progress and Konstantin Fetzer (1,314,849, $1,750), Andrii Novak (1,021,205, $1,062) and Gabriel De Moura (973,110, $1,437) were the rest of the top-five stacks.
This is a $1K event so plenty of other famous players were in the 135 field. Dominik Nitsche (920,009, $1,125), Faraz Jaka (824,455 + $750), Francois Billard (408,217 + $1,187), WOC Main Event Champion Phillip Mighall (271,880 + $718) and Juha Helppi (264,548 + $0) are just a handful of the ones returning to challenge.
They all lock up a min-cash of $1,275 for getting this far, the winner will take $14,793 but those are not the final numbers with thousands of dollars more available via the lucrative bounties. Play continues at 7:05 pm with blinds at 8,000/16,000 2,000 ante.
$109 Mini Closer ($100K GTD)
Peru’s Diego Miyashiro (3,120,161, $265) starts in pole position in the mini event. Of the 836 starters, just 70 are still in with a shot. Of those, Vítězslav Čech (3,090,046, $506) and a trio of Brazilians are Miyashiro’s closest rivals, with Leonardo De Souza Alcantara (2,816,579 + $234), Felipe Degani (2,748,504 + $200) and Marcelo Agrella Bernardino (2,597,181 + $571) all building up stacks worthy of the top five.
Blinds will pick up at Level 23 (15,000/30,000 3,750 ante) and everyone is in the money so far, with $202 already locked up for making it this far. There is a lot more at stake though as the first place prize stands at $7,928 plus bounties.
Leaderboards
Player of the Championship
Artur Martirosian has made a late break, with a string of results recently that see him fly up to the top of the Leaderboard for the first time.
Rising Star
The winner of the Rising Star Leaderboard receives $10,000 – for the Player of the Championship it is $50,000! – and you can read more about both by clicking here.
Tonight’s schedule
