By Lisa Yiasemides
Day 4 of the WPT Online Series at partypoker.com didn’t buck the trend, producing more outstanding poker across a variety of stake levels. There was no doubt it was an epic night with seven trophies handed out – more than we have seen on a single day so far!
This evening will be extra special too, as the live stream begins tonight! Coverage of the final day of the $10,300 High Roller starts at 7 pm* and the Super High Roller will be streamed tomorrow from 7 pm, with commentary brought to you by WPT champion’s club member James Dempsey.
High Roller – $ 5,200
First up is the High Roller, which attracted some serious poker talent and generated a $1,125,000 prizepool when it kicked off two days ago. When play resumed at 7 pm there were 16 players in contention for the $229,386 prize for first place. Mark Radoja ($16,650) was the first to exit, closely followed by Andras Nemeth ($16,650). Daniel Dvoress ($20,025) made it as far as 12th and John O’Shea ($20,025) exited on the final table bubble.
That paved the way for Farid Jattin ($25,875), Wiktor Malinowski ($34,875) and Team partypoker Kristen Bicknell ($47,250) to bag themselves some ladders before the final five was decided. Fellow partypoker Ambassador Nikita Bodyakovski had begun the day as chip leader but couldn’t progress past 5th place and after Christoph Vogelsang (4th) and Alberto Meran (3rd) fell, there were just two players remaining.
Pascal Hartmann
Dimitar Danchev and Pascal Hartmann did a deal at this point, leaving a difference of a little over $15,000 to play for and Hartman clinched it to take the title and the trophy and $205,827 in prizemoney.
6-Max Bounty Hunter – $2,100
Just ten remained when play kicked off at 7 pm and five and a half hours later, Guillaume Nolet had cut himself the biggest slice of the $580,000 prizepool after the Canadian defeated Ambrose Carr heads up. The two players won the same amount from the main prizepool but the bounties made all the difference as Nolet’s bounty was worth more than the cash proportion of his prize – worth an additional $66,000!
Nolet scored the title and trophy after beating players such as Australian pro Michael Addamo (6th) and Barry Hutter, who collected a total of $18,378 for making it to 8th place, some consolation for missing out on a spot at the final table.
Guillaume Nolet
Mini 6-Max Bounty Hunter – $215
Running alongside it was the Mini 6-Max Bounty Hunter and 55 players returned to win their share of the $341,600 prizepool. German player Robert Heidorn took the biggest slice with when he was crowned champion after beating Davi Cola De Melo heads up.
Paul Höfer made his second final table of the series (previously winning the $2,100 Knockout) and netting himself valuable Leaderboard points in the process, whilst Stefan Huber, Micky Blasi and Antonio Roberto Cao Klein Ligtenberg completed the top six payouts.
Heads Up – $1,050
With the two-day tournaments concluded, the first one-day tournaments took place on Wednesday night. Of the four, the biggest buy-in was in the Heads-Up and it attracted a host of recognisable names. The $100,000 guarantee was easily beaten with 121 players generating a $121,000 prizepool.
Anthony Zinno topped the field after making a deal with runner up Ameer Jamil Wakil. Zinno had the upper hand in the chip counts at the time the deal was struck but that didn’t stop the pair splitting the prizemoney right down the middle.
Anthony Zinno
Ivan Sakharov and online tournament titan Niklas Åstedt made it to the semi-finals while German powerhouse Dominik Nitsche and Gianluca Speranza bowed out in the quarters, but many of the tournament’s most recognisable names finished outside of the 16 places paid. These included Ryan Riess, Koray Aldemir, Ole Schemion, Connor Drinan, Shawn Buchanan, Jack Sinclair, and Team partypoker players Kristen Bicknell, Patrick Leonard, Ludovic Geilich and Jeff Gross.
Mini Heads Up – $109
The tournament reached its maximum number of entries as 256 players bought in and fought for a slice of the $21,504 prizepool. Kevin Rabichow walked away with the seventh trophy of the night, pipping Ian O’Hara to the post.
Turbo Bounty – $530
The first two turbo events in the calendar kicked off last night too. Gianluca Escobar was the victor and scored the biggest bounty by far, with $22,758 claimed via eliminations alone… not bad at all for less than five hours work!
Robert Kacinski came closest to the title, with Peter Turmezey, Fabrizio Dagostino and Calvin Andersson also making it to the top five out of the 411 entries. The big field ensured $55,500 more than the guarantee was generated for a prizepool that reached $205,500! Notably, Ambrose Carr (6th) made his second final table of the evening after finishing runner up in the 6-Max Bounty Hunter.
Mini Turbo Bounty – $55
The last of the one-day tournaments replicated that of the one above in every way except the buy-in. A huge 1,786 registrations were logged and it took almost six hours for Alexandros Vlachakis to reign supreme after beating Adrian Strobel (2nd), Jamie Oneil (3rd), Flávio Nascimento (4th), Anthony Clancy (5th), Eric William Neves (6th), Craig Martin (7th) and Jessica Teusl (8th) at the final table to take the biggest share of the $89,300 prizepool.
High Roller ($10,300) concludes tonight
Only one two-day tournament got underway yesterday and it was the biggest buy-in event of the series so far… unsurprisingly attracting a high calibre of players to the virtual felt. $1,050,000 was generated in prizemoney from the 105 registrations and some of the world’s most elite players took a stab at winning the $257,250 top prize but only nine survived until the end of Level 20, when the clock was paused for the night.
Jorma Nuutinen (763,225), Rui Ferreira (565,521), Alexandru Papazian (466,598), Sam Greenwood (345,988), Matthias Eibinger (315,335), Tim Adams (237,740), Artur Martirosian (196,730), Pauli Äyräs (170,951) and Joni Jouhkimainen (87,912) all return with chips when play resumes at 7 pm and, as mentioned earlier, James Dempsey will be commentating on all the action until a winner is crowned.
Alexandru Papazian
Adrian Mateos (10th), Orpen Kisacikoglu (11th), Sergi Reixach (15th), Zach Clark (16th) all reached the money with 16 places paid. It wasn’t as good news for Almedin Imsirovic, who bubbled, nor Ole Schemion, Alex Foxen, David Peters, Nick Petrangelo, Fedor Holz, Steve O’Dwyer and Dan Smith who all finished outside of the money.
WPT500 & WPT Super 50 continue
The starting flights in the WPT500 and WPT Super 50 continued with Day 1d taking place in each. Pierre-Paul Paulin (486,999) chipped up biggest as Dimitar Danchev (431,582) finished 2nd in chips. Kelvin Kerber (344,876), Kenny Hallaert (331,655), Tomas Fara (284,489) and Koray Aldemir (272,892) were the next largest stacks.
Bradley Coultas (532,358), William Givens (472,104), finished first and second in the counts as Ioannis Angelou-Konstas (417,963) and Maxim Lykov (376,884) also bagged big.
Coming up tonight
Another trio of veritable treats awaits players tonight as the $25,500 Super High Roller gets underway at 7 pm. Just before that, at 6 pm, are the $2,650 6-Max and $265 Mini 6-Max events. All three are two-day events.
Leaderboard
Please note this takes into account results up to and including May 5.
Leo Fernandez is still in front on 227 points, with Zach Clark 50 points behind him. Sylvain Loosli appears on the list for the first time as the Frenchman’s second final table result from two days ago has been included.
*All times noted are BST