By Lisa Yiasemides
Two more winners crowned last night, and both were in progressive knock-out tournaments. The first was a $530 buy-in that attracted many big names. The second had a more modest $55 buy-in but it had a very attractive $75,000 guarantee of its own. In the end, it would be representatives of the Uk who would take down both events…
$530 Knockout ($100K GTD)
Knockout tournaments continue to appeal to poker players and last night’s competition was no exception, smashing its $100,000 guarantee after 271 players flocked to play, creating a total prize pool of $135,500.
With twelve-minute blinds on the clock, the one-day event was always going to finish late and it was almost 3:30am (BST) by the time a winner had emerged. Britain’s Simon Deadman was that player, having triumphed over Finland’s Santtu Ojala heads up. Both players took around $10K for their results but the bounties were what really separated them – Deadman bagged $14,722 compared to Ojala’s $6,718.
Simon Deadman
Joshua Mccully took the last podium spot after he made it as far as third, outlasting Romanian professional Alexandru Papazian who exited in 4th place. Gytis Lazauninkas had gone out just before that, denying fellow final tablists Victor Begara (6th, $3,435 including $562 bounties), Guntis Aleskins (7th, $3,865 including $2,007 in bounties) and Viktor Zsemlye (8th, $2,421 including $1,000 in bounties) the honour of reaching the top five.
Pedro Madeira (9th, $1,820) bubbled a final table seat and he joined some well-known names at the rail with Andreas Klatt (11th, $1,406) and WPT Prague 2016 Champion Oleg Vasylchenko ($14th, $2,054) also running deep. The top 40 were paid and other notables to see a return on their money were Mikołaj Zawadzki (29th, $2,141), Dutch pro Jan Arends (33rd $1,026), Boris Kolev (35th, $839), Michael Sklenička (37th, $526) and partypoker’s Jamie Staples (38th, $901).
Legendary online grinder Luke “Bit2Easy” Reeves finished in 41st to bubble, but the Brit eliminated two opponents to bring $312 of investment back. The last player to leave truly empty-handed was Kevin Parkes.
Other notable bustouts before the bubble were Philipp Gruissem (53rd, $687 in bounties), Georgios Kapalas (55th, $500 in bounties), Jan-Eric Schwippert (59th), Artur Martirosian (80th) and Kristen Bicknell (137th).
$55 Mini Knockout ($75K GTD)
In total 1,434 entries were counted, just 16 away from reaching the guarantee. Once again the tournament started at 7pm and it took just a few minutes longer to play out than its big brother, reaching a conclusion after eight hours and 35 minutes of play.
James Rann took the second trophy of the night, one that will also make its way to the British Isles after Lithuanian TB – the last remaining opposition – fell at the last hurdle to take the runner up spot.
James Rann
Brazil, Austria and Canada were also represented in the top five as Luis Carlos Krupinski, Michael Cano and Kirk Loveless all enjoyed deep runs. Taoufik Talbi took $1,333 including $189 in bounties for 6th; Robert Szeredai collected $ 1,530 including $819 in bounties for 7th; and Andrey Manuylov’s 8th place finish was worth $1,482 with $918 of that bounty prizes.
Vadzim Lipauka came 16th, for $453 including $188 bounties. He managed to get really deep into the money stages of the 184 paid, but couldn’t quite able to convert it into a final table finish. Still, no doubt he would have been a lot happier with that result than Christodoulos Anastasiou who bubbled the event. The Cypriot did manage to collect four bounties worth $56 to win his money back though, something that Angelo Barichello couldn’t achieve and he left with nothing on the soft bubble.
Tonight’s schedule
There are plenty of Mega Sats available to play tonight ahead of the next Championship tournament, and the second Mike Sexton WPT Champions Cup event. This week it is all about the 6-Max and tonight Day 1a in the 6-Max Warm Up events get off the mark too.