James Akenhead Wins The partypoker WPT Vienna Warm Up (€65,000)

Congratulations to James Akenhead, winner of the partypoker World Poker Tour Vienna Warm Up tournament for €65,000 after beating a field of 1,157 entries. The final day started with 14 players all vying for the massive top prize in this tournament that had a buy-in of just €340, but in the end it was lone top pro left that came out on top.

After a fast-paced first 90 minutes the tournament got down to its final table, and the chip counts were as following at that point.

Seat 1 – Martin Toncev – 1,340,000
Seat 2 – Jozef Faber – 835,000
Seat 3 – Oliver Baude – 3,165,000
Seat 4 – Lajos Motel – 6,075,000
Seat 5 – Catalin Dragomir – 930,000
Seat 6 – Milos Zerzevski – 720,000
Seat 7 – David Koglbruber – 1,920,000
Seat 8 – James Akenhead – 7,630,000
Seat 9 – Christoph Zobl – 395,000

In the first six hands of the final table no less than four players got knocked out. Christoph Zobl busted in ninth after running fives into the ace-queen of David Koglgruber, followed by Martin Toncev who couldn’t find a way out with nine-seven suited versus the ace-ten of Akenhead.

Jozef Faber got knocked out in seventh just minutes later, and he also fell to Akenhead who caught trips with seven-eight suited versus the ace-ten of Faber. Things got even more spectacular when Oliver Baude cracked the aces of Milos Zerzevski with ace-eight suited, sending the Serbian player home in sixth place.

After a short period of stalemate it was Catalin Dragomir from Romania who busted out in fifth place. Dragomir got his chips in trailing with ace-nine to the queens of Akenhead, and he didn’t find a way out.

Koglgruber – who had challenged Akenhead the most – ultimately played a massive pot against his big rival that resulted in his fourth-place elimination. Akenhead held pocket aces and got Koglgruber to commit his tournament life on the turn after having flopped a king.

Lajos Motel came into the final table second in chips, but he busted out in third place. Motel played a big coin flip against Akenhead with ace-king against pocket jacks, and the board ran dry to bring us down to the heads-up battle between Akenhead and Baude.

Heads-Up Chip Counts
James Akenhead – 18,965,000 (158 big blinds)
Oliver Baude – 4,195,000 (34 big blinds)

Despite Akenhead’s massive chip lead, the heads up lasted for well over four hours. Both players were on the brink of winning numerous times before Akenhead finally closed things out by beating Baude’s ace-jack suited with ace-deuce. The short-stacked Baude ended up all in and at risk, after which Akenhead flopped a pair of deuces and the nut flush draw, of which Baude did not recover. We spoke to Akenhead after his win.

Here’s the final results overview of the final table.

1. James Akenhead – €65,000
2. Oliver Baude – €40,500
3. Lajos Motel – €23,680
4. David Koglgruber – €17,520
5. Catalin Dragomir – €12,660
6. Milos Zerzevski – €9,530
7. Jozef Faber – €7,810
8. Martin Toncev – €6,420
9. Christoph Zobl – €5,160

Please make sure to tune back in tomorrow for the start of the €3,300 Main Event, which will have a live stream with hole cards up on Sunday.