Lukasz Fraczek has come through a massive 2,763 player field to win the WPT500 Barcelona for €215,000.
Over three online and seven live starting flights the €550 buy-in event saw a €1,340,055 prize pool created, eclipsing the €1,000,000 guarantee.
On the final day of action, 34 players returned all with one eye on the title. But it was 24-year-old professional player Fraczek who was the last player standing after he got the better of Italy’s Federico Piroddi heads-up.
Speaking after his win Fraczek said:
“I was never really thinking of the huge prize money. I just concentrated on making the right decisions and building my stack. I won in the most important spots, and I was not the best player heads-up but I got lucky.”
It was a whirlwind 48 hours for Fraczek who played for over 14 hours on Day 2 having qualified from the 10 am starting Day 1G turbo flight.
“This is by far my biggest ever cash” Fraczek added.
“I will still play the satellites for the WPT Barcelona Main Event, but I have more options now.”
Final Table Results:
| 1 | Lukasz Fraczek | €215,000 |
| 2 | Federico Piroddi | €145,000 |
| 3 | Alberto Ah Line | €99,405 |
| 4 | Josep Galindo | €75,000 |
| 5 | Toni Lazo | €56,000 |
| 6 | Raffaello Locatelli | €44,000 |
| 7 | Sergey Petrushevskiy | €34,000 |
| 8 | Paul Romero | €28,000 |
| 9 | Jurgi Neuhaus | €22,000 |
The action was fast-paced from the start and it only took five hours to reduce the field from 34 to the final eight.
Start-of-day chip leader Boris Kolev was unable to take his momentum from Day 2 into the final day, and the Bulgarian departed in 21st place.
Ingrid Etienne, who was the last women standing, departed in 17th place for €9,500 and her exit paved the way for the final two tables left.
French professional Sonny Franco departed in 16th and was followed shortly after by Nikolaos Panopoulous in 15th. Florian Faore took 14th place before American Michael Dyer, who has over $4.1m in live cashes, exited in 13th after Josep Galindo hit a flush to score a double knockout that included Robert Escribano’s departure in 12th.
Dutchman Tobias Peters (pictured) came into Day 3 as the shortest of the 34 players and only had three big blind to his name. But Peters was able to turn it around from the off and within 90 minutes had transformed his 400,000 stack into 2,800,000. Peters’ ultimately hit the rail in 11th place after seeing Paul Romero hit quads nines against ace-king, despite the WPTDeepStacks Europe Player of the Year picking up a royal flush draw on the flop.
It was then time for another double knockout as the field was reduced from ten to eight in one fell swoop. Eventual winner Lukasz Fraczek hit a flush with queen-jack and eliminated both WPT Champions Club member Chanracy Khun (10th) and Jurgi Neuhaus (9th) who had got their short stacks into the middle with ace-seven and ace-queen respectively.
When the final table of eight resumed, there was a shock first departure as Paul Romero, who was third in chips at the time, miss-clicked all in. Romero moved all in for 14 million from the small blind not realizing that then chip leader Josep Galindo had raised from under the gun. Galindo spotted the error after Romero moved his chips back after the big blind had folded, and thought for two minutes before he called. Galindo’s ace-nine held against Romero’s king-three, and the field was reduced to seven.
Sergey Petrushevskiy (7th- €34,000), Raffaello Locatelli (6th- €44,000), and Toni Lazo (5th-€56,000) were next to depart before Galindo lost his chip lead to Fraczek in a hand where the former held a straight but was no match against the latter’s full house.
Galindo then exited in 4th for €75,000, followed by Albert Ah Line in 3rd place for €99,405 which set up the heads-up match between Fraczek and Piroddi.
Piroddi pulled the stacks level within the first 30 minutes and then continued his aggression to take the lead. But Fraczek then found a double up and didn’t look back.
In the final hand, the board was down ace-deuce-ten-nine, and Piroddi check-raised all in for 24 million after Fraczek had bet 5,300,000. The Polish player needed time to think but ultimately opted to call and showed six-eight of hearts for a flush draw and gutshot straight draw. Piroddi was ahead with a pair of tens and just needed to fade the river to survive. But with the rail gathered to bear witness, the dealer slowly revealed the final card to be the seven of clubs and Fraczek hit a straight to seal the victory.
Piroddi banked €145,000 and was congratulated by his rail, before shaking hands with Fraczek in what turned out to be a very well battled heads-up match.
That’s all from the WPT500 Barcelona, but be sure to stay locked to WPT.com over the next five days as the WPT Main Event continues!
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