By Lisa Yiasemides
What an incredible night! The last of the three flagship events, the WPTDeepStacks and the Mini WPTDeepStacks have reached their conclusions. Thousands entered, creating mammoth prize pools in each, with the total cash prizes across the two final tables exceeding $2,000,000!
Several players will wake up this morning significantly better off than they were yesterday and with plenty to celebrate, but there can only be two winners and they are Jareth East and Anton Yakuba!
WPTDeepStacks – $1,050
A total of 3,554 players took part across all the starting flights and by 8 pm* yesterday, there were just 18 left. $15,282 was already guaranteed but there was the potential to win a lot more with most of the $3,554,000 prize pool still to play for, including over half a million dollars up top.
The action was fast at the start and three tables quickly became two after Fabrizio D’Agostino (18th) and Davide Marchi (17th) busted first. They were followed by Alexandru Baron (16th), Jonatan Fager (15th), Kamal Khalfane (14th) and Peter Chien (13th) who all took $20,898 for their efforts.
Ludovic Geilich (12th) and partypoker teammate Joni Jouhkimainen (11th) managed to ladder a couple of spots despite starting short. Timothy Begley (10th) and Luke Martinelli (9th) busted on neighbouring tables, confirming the final table line-up in the last hand before the first break.
Sergei Denisov had dropped to just a few big blinds and didn’t manage to stage a comeback. Shortly after he was joined at the rail by Mihail Zavoloka who made a gutsy big blind call with ace-queen when East applied ICM pressure from the button, sadly for him he didn’t manage to hold against king-jack. That hand was instrumental for our eventual winner, who took the chip lead for the first time.
It took a lot longer for the next elimination to occur, but East was the executor once again, with Rimantas Petras Boguzas departing next, the last player to leave without a six-figure cash. The second chip leader of Day 2, Phillip Mighall, was out the door in 5th place and chip leader Maksim Bukreev wasn’t far behind. Dimitrios Farmakoulis had put up a valiant fight throughout the final, using his short stack well and successfully taking down many pots preflop until he hit a wall and left in third.
Jareth East
That left the two online pros to go head to head and neither showed any interest in doing a deal, instead opting to play it out to the very end. Within five minutes, Jonathan Van Fleet had accumulated a 6:1 lead after calling East’s bluff with second pair. It looked like it would be over in record time until the tables turned, and a series of big pots went the way of his opponent leaving Van Fleet the 6:1 underdog.
Despite putting up a great fight (almost coming back to even at one point), the roller coaster was over after an hour of heads up play with the final hand involving a four-bet pot on the flop that saw Van Fleet shove the rest of his 15bb stack with an over and a flush draw but busting against East’s limped pocket-queens. That hand decided our latest trophy winner, with East getting the title and the huge cash prize to boot for his incredible run.
Mini WPTDeepStacks – $109
Over 10,000 entries were counted in an event that was ‘Mini’ only in name. 38 made it through to the third and final day with some big names in the running when play kicked off at 8 pm.
Anton Yakuba and Luiz Antonio Duarte Ferreira Filho agreed on a deal when they were the last two left in and both bagged themselves a six-figure sum. Yakuba, who held the chip lead at this point, was immediately declared the winner, bringing an end to the four-and-a-half-hours of battle across the virtual felt.
Both Yakuba and Duarte Ferreira Filho saw off some tough competition with Swedish pro and WPTDeepStacks UK champion Michael Tureniec taking third place. Rodrigo Semeghini and Griffin Benger completed the top five positions, as Peter Hådén, Ivan Tononi and Bernardo Soares also made it to the final table.
Michael Tureniec
Shawn Buchanan (12th) Marc Wright (13th), Jan-Eric Schwippert (21st) ran deep too but would no doubt have been disappointed not to get a little further, and take home a bigger chunk of the $1,040,000 prize pool.
Concludes tonight
6-Max – $1,050
Two events got off the mark last night and will play to a winner later this evening. In the $1,050 comp 210 players sat down to try for a share of the $210,000 prize pool and when the clock was paused at the end of Level 22, eight had found a bag.
There have been several players who have consistently run deep in events throughout this series and Niklas Åstedt (281,967) and Viktor Ustimov (306,276) are two of those. They return at the bottom of the chip counts and will be chasing Marc Macdonnell (586,629), Ferenc Deak (627,686), Bertil Andreas Samuelsson (793,752), Alexandr Trofimov (1,037,974), Mike Watson (1,192,420) and chip leader Alexandros Theologis (1,472,846).
Viktor Ustimov
Pieter Aerts, Pedro Marques, Tamás Ádámszki, Scott Margereson and Gianluca Speranza were a few of the notables to reach the money with 32 paid, while partypoker’s Kristen Bicknell was the unfortunate bubble girl. At least $4,830 is in the bag for those still in but they will all have their sights firmly set on the $42,819 prize that will go to the winner.
Mini 6-Max – $109
Running alongside it was the Mini 6-Max. A whopping 1,005 entries were counted and 31 return tonight to play out for as big a share of the $105,000 prize pool as they can muster.
Quinten Noble (2,496,524) starts in front and is significantly ahead of second chip leader Joaquim Coutinho (1,841,682) and Martin Erdmann (1,820,933), Anton Shapochka (1,754,808) and Patryk Poterek (1,618,244) who make up the remainder of the top five stacks.
Alessandro Valli and David Ivers are also through, while Alexandre Reard, Stewart Kirby and Mohsin Charania all saw a return on their investment but failed to find a bag at the end.
On today’s schedule
Two tournaments are on the cards tonight: the $1,575 8-Max Bounty ($500k GTD) and the $162 Mini 8-Max Bounty ($200k GTD). Both tournaments are two-day affairs and are not to be missed – bounty tournaments have been among the most popular events in the series there is no reason that these will buck the trend.
Leaderboard
Please note this takes into account results up to and including May 26
With the finish line in sight, Viktor Ustimov, Rui Ferreira, Samuel Vousden, Sam Greenwood and Pascal Hartmann remain in the top five spots…will anyone be able to catch them? Tomorrow sees the results of the WPTDeepStacks, so check back here then to see how those latest points affect the leaderboard.
*All times stated are BST