Ioannis Angelou-Konstas Makes History; Wins Second WPTDS Title in Brussels for €75,000 ($92,250)

History has been made! After winning WPTDeepStacks Netherlands five months ago, Ioannis Angelou-Konstas has taken down WPTDeepStacks Brussels for €75,000 ($92,250) in prize money, including a €2,000 package to the WPTDS Europe season-ending event.

This is only the second time in history, after Rex Clinkscales’ double last year in Tampa and Edmonton, but it is the very first time the feat has been achieved in Europe since the WPTDS arrived on this side of the Atlantic last year.

Angelou-Konstas came into the day and the final table as chip leader, just as he did in October last year, and he held onto it, apart from a briefest of moments, until he was crowned the winner shortly before 9pm local time.

1. Ioannis Angelou-Konstas – €75,000 ($92,250)
2. Martin Kaya – €52,050 ($64,022)
3. Milan Rabsz – €33,510 ($41,217)
4. Gianluca Bucchino – €24,805 ($30,510)
5. Michael Lech – €18,620 ($22,903)
6. Roland Rozel – €14,990 ($18,438)
7. Mourad Tounnouti – €12,370 ($15,215)
8. Miguel Coussement – €9,915 ($12,195)
9. Amin Charef – €7,445 ($9,157)

It didn’t take long for the first elimination of the final table, with Roland Rozel sending short-stack Amin Charef to the rail inside the first level. Charef held king-queen but ran into the ace-king of Rozel to depart first.

The start of the day was full of doubles, most notably when Miguel Coussement dodged a myriad of outs – he was in fact an underdog on the flop – when Lech flopped an open-ended straight flush draw against the pocket kings of Coussement. Luckily for the Belgian the turn and river were bricks and he doubled.

Bucchino would then double through Rozel, and Lech himself would double through Bucchino in a whirlwind of action during the early goings. Rozel would then send another player to the rail, when Coussement moved all in with a pair of queens, only to be out-kicked by Rozel. The river was a brick and Coussement was eliminated in eighth place.

Mourad Tounnouti was the next to go, with Rozel eliminating a third player at this final table. Tounnouti was in good shape with ace-king against the king-queen of Rozel, but a queen on the river sent the Day 1c chip leader to the rail.

However, despite these three eliminations all coming at the hands of Rozel, he never fully asserted himself on the final table. With Angelou-Konstas still sitting pretty at the top of the chip counts, Rozel moved all in from the small blind with the Greek player in the big blind. Angelou-Konstas called with sevens and was ahead of the fives of Rozel. The board bricked and Rozel was eliminated, with Angelou-Konstas extending his chip lead five-handed.

Michael Lech had a quiet day; the recent WSOP ring winner eventually got queen-jack in against the ace-nine of Milan Rabsz. Rabsz took down the pot and for a brief moment, he took over the chip lead from Angelou-Konstas.

However, Angelou-Konstas soon had it back, taking a huge portion of chips from Rabsz in the biggest pot of the tournament. Angelou-Konstas check-called three times on a three-spade board only for Rabsz to muck. Angelou-Konstas had half the chips in play and was in an even stronger position four-handed.

With six of the nine million chips at the break, Angelou-Konstas took his foot off the gas, allowing Martin Kaya to get back into the contest. First, Kaya doubled through Rabsz with jack-ten against king-queen, with the German spiking a ten on the turn to stay alive.

Then, Kaya sent Day 1a chip leader Gianluca Bucchino to the rail with ace-king against the Italian’s ace-queen. And he repeated the feat moments later when he picked up ace-king again against the ace-queen of Rabsz. Again, ace-king held and Kaya found himself with 3.7m chips to Angelou-Konstas’s 5.75m as they started heads-up play.

If Angelou-Konstas’s day had been easy up until now, it was going to become a lot easier. Kaya didn’t have a great heads-up, barely winning a pot over five big blinds and seeing his stack dwindle. At one point he three-bet to 610,000 when Angelou-Konstas opened, but folded to a shove.

A short while later, and after chopping an initial all in, Kaya got it in with king-six of hearts against queen-three of diamonds. Kaya flopped a flush draw, turned a pair of sixes and looked set to get back into this heads-up match.

It wasn’t to be. The Queen of Clubs came on the river, handing Angelou-Konstas one of the six outs he needed to take down the title, and Kaya would have to settle for second.