By Lisa Yiasemides
The first couple of weeks of this festival have been exciting, with plenty of winners, titles and huge cash prizes to write home about. Tonight, however, we crank it up a notch with the first Mike Sexton Champions Cup event playing down to a winner this evening!
James Dempsey will be joined in the commentary booth by none other than Mike Sexton himself. Lynn Gilmartin and Liv Boeree are also stopping by to give their thoughts on what is one of the biggest highlights of the series so far. Coverage will be cards up too, so you can sweat along with some of poker’s most well-known names!
On top of that, last night saw three winners crowned in the Big Game events and tonight, the three Second Chance tournaments also play to a winner. For now though, let’s take a look at the latest WPT title holders.
$5,200 Big Game ($1M GTD)
Play resumed with 9 of the 195 entries still in contention. It took just one hour and 41 minutes for a conclusion to be reached. At the end of it, it was Canadian pro and Day 2 chip leader Parker Talbot who saw off the competition. The last hurdle in his way to scoring the $200,650 top prize was William Arruda, who made it all the way to heads up but couldn’t go the extra mile and bowed out in second place. The $146,050 will be a tasty sweetener for falling at the last.
Parker Talbot
Pavel Plesuv started at the bottom of the pack and that was where he ended up, taking $20,800 for 9th place. That meant Victor Begara would take home the larger $25,000 prize for eighth, while Andrii Novak (7th, $32,500) and Aleksejs Meless (6th, $40,000) would all hit the rail outside of the final five too.
Sami Kelopuro, who continues to impress with so many deep runs and cashes, took fifth place, leaving just before Timothy Ryan Kelly who was the last player to leave without a six-figure score. Andres Gonzalez De Agustin took the last podium place and more than $100,000 for making it that to third place.
$530 Mini Big Game ($300K GTD)
With a $530 price tag, the Mini event isn’t small by almost anyone’s standards. With a lofty guarantee attached to it too, there were a whole heap of stars who took to the virtual felt to play, collecting a total of $307,700 for the prize pool.
The 650 entries had been reduced to just 22 ahead of the final day, when they returned last night to continue playing at 5pm (BST). $2,492 was already locked up and many big names made at least one ladder, with Markus Prinz (16th), Renato Nomura (15th) and Robin Ylitalo (14th) all securing themselves one pay jump worth $3,138 before hitting the rail.
Just four more players needed to go before the final table was reached and João Ferreira Caetano (9th, $4,738), Raphael Tavares Medeiros (8th, $5,615), Jeff Gross (7th, $6,892) and Daniel Smiljkovic (6th, $9,569) were the next to leave.
Sami Kelopuro made his second final table of the night and equalled his fifth-place finish. Once Dmitry Larionov and Feizal Satchu were disposed of, Leonard Oliver Maue tried his best to challenge but couldn’t defeat Ivan Bacelic, who takes the title and trophy as well as the cash prize.
$55 Micro Big Game ($100K GTD)
The $100,000 guarantee drew a crowd of 2,152 entries in the Micro event and of those, 65 found a bag ahead of the final day. It was an epic session that lasted almost eight hours, with Augusto Tomaz Floriano coming out on top after doing a deal with runner-up placer Florian Loehnert, leaving just a $224 difference in prize money to end the heads up match.
Dávid Farkas, Vlad Darie and Gregor Sverko also finished in the top five, with Florent Vandevelde (6th, $2,570), start-of-the-day chip leader Anders Lund Olsen (7th, $1,765), Eduardo B Junior (8th, $1,314) and Konstantinos Stroulis (9th, $1,074) all securing themselves a five-figure result for reaching the final table.
Concludes tonight
Event #03: $3,200 8-Max Championship ($3M GTD)
It took over eight hours for the 157 players who made it through to Day 2 to reach the final nine, at which point the clock paused. At the start of the evening, 21 needed to go for the bubble to burst, with huge names like Kevin Rabichow (157th), László Bujtás (156th), Chris Brammer (155th) and Niklas Åstedt (152nd) all failing to spin up their short stacks and exiting early. Jonas Gjelstad (137th) was the last to leave empty-handed and his departure allowed Joachim Haraldstad (136th, $7,327) to sneak into the money.
Barry Hutter (126th), Andrey Pateychuk (125th) and Steve O’Dwyer (121st) all got min-cashes for their efforts too, but that wasn’t the end of the big names, with many doing their best to progress to the final day but busting before the end. Some of those who came closest to a final table seat were online star Alex Difelice (30th, $13,062), Philipp Gruissem (30th, $14,337), Day 2 chip leader and WPTDeepStacks winner Ioannis Angelou-Konstas (25th, $14,337), Dzmitry Urbanovich (17th, $18,478) and Ben Heath (12th, $32,497).
It was a formidable display from online PLO specialist Gavin Cochrane. The Brit amassed essentially twice the number of chips that his two closest rivals, Thomas Boivin and Dmitry Yurasov.
Gavin Cochrane – Courtesy of Poker Central
There was another big gap in the chip counts between the top three and the remainder of the table, with Daniel Colpoys and Sam Grafton coming into the final in a better position than the bottom four, all of whom have a sub 20 big blind stack. There are some very talented players among them though and whichever way it works out, it will undoubtedly be a thrilling final to watch.
A huge proportion of the $3,186,000 prize pool is still up for grabs, and we will not stop until a winner is crowned. Blinds return at Level 18 – 150,000-300,000 (37,500 ante).
The winner will walk away with a monster score of $540,664, their name on the Mike Sexton WPT Champions Cup, a $15,000 ticket to the WPT Tournament of Champions presented by Baccarat Crystal, and a Hublot Classic Fusion Titanium watch, worth $7,500. There will be six-figure scores for all players to reach the top five.
Event #03: $320 Mini 8-Max Championship ($1M GTD)
With a huge guarantee of it’s own and a $320 buy-in, it was no surprise to see plenty of pros taking a shot at the Mini event. A total of 3,309 registrations were logged over the starting flights and 521 progressed to Day 2 last night.
It took quite seven and a half hours for 20 levels to play out and before that, the bubble had to be negotiated with 472 paid. Timo Kamphues, the Shooting Stars charity winner, exited on the pure bubble, while Roman Retzmann took $650 for the first player to leave after the money had been reached.
Plenty of big names busted thereafter with Pascal Hartmann (38th, $2,600), Joao Vieira (33rd, $2,600) and Mike Watson (24th, $4,170) among the pros who went deep but couldn’t navigate their way to the final day.
Twenty players return tonight and Ivan Vilchez (38,625,721) narrowly starts in front of second chip leader Vito Recchimurzo (37,280,255). Alexandre Kindermann Bez (24,856,625), Daniel Mcaulay (24,649,095) and Daniel Sternald Petersen (23,146,831) complete the top five stacks. Roberto Romanello (17,776,165) is also in good stead and will start 9th in the counts when the claxon sounds at 7pm.
Blinds will resume at Level 21, 250,000-500,000 (62,500 ante) and $4,170 is already in the bank for each of the survivors, with $152,857 the massive top prize for whoever finishes first.
Event #03: $33 Micro 8-Max Championship ($300K GTD)
It was a huge field of 7,765 across the Day 1s and now only 48 remain in contention of the $44,807 top prize. As in the Mini, players come back to play Level 21, 250,000-500,000 (62,500 ante) at 7pm and Poland’s Dominik Gluminski (42,329,188) starts in pole position, with Boris Angelov (36,297,959) best placed to challenge.
Just 28 players left with nothing as 1,142 of the day’s 1,140 starters got paid a return on their investment. Mikhail Lazarau just missed out on a $75 min-cash and there was the usual flurry of bustouts in the period shortly after.
Jamie Dale was the last to leave before the end and took home $486. That signalled another pay jump, with the 48 remaining all guaranteed at least $540 to line their wallets.
$1,575 8-Max Second Chance PKO ($300K GTD)
The reigns have barely been pulled since the series began and there were three more incredible tournaments on offer, with three very attractive prize pool guarantees to go with them, concluding last night’s schedule.
The first was the Main event and 189 entries were logged. Jans Arends was first to go and he promptly rebought in to face the same fate a second time, leaving in 147th. Elio Fox had a similar experience, firing two bullets and leaving without a single bounty to recoup any of his losses.
It was better news for Kristen Bicknell, who busted in 149th the first time around, faring better with her second entry but leaving just before the end of play in 16th place. Still, she secured herself a cash worth $2,606 plus $2,671 in bounties, to net a profit for the event. She also lasted slightly longer than her partner Alex Foxen, who hit the rail in 17th for a $1,974 cash (plus $2,250) in bounties.
Arsenii Karmatckii was the last player to leave taking $2,606 (plus $1,781 in bounties) for 14th place, which leaves 13 still with a hope of acquiring the $27,547 top prize, which doesn’t include those all-important bounties. There are too many notables to list them all here, but Ivan Emanuely (3,960,972) had a very productive evening to finish miles ahead of second chip leader Daniel Montagnolli (2,127,272). Joao Vieira (2,043,730) finished in third, a whisker ahead of Soenke Jahn (2,043,130). WPTDeepStacks winner Firoz ‘Mohammed’ Mangroe (1,995,594) took the last top-five spot.
$162 Mini 8-Max Second Chance PKO ($100K GTD)
By the end of 22 levels, only 63 players were still standing of the 722 entries. Stefan Huber leads with 2,906,993 in the bag at the end. Dzianis Hrabski (2,897,476) and Jonathan Clark (2,727,440) had great runs too, ending in second and third places respectively.
Richard Dubini (1,586,900) and Sylvain Loosli (659,621) are also both still in contention of the $7,513 (plus bounties) prize that will be awarded to first place, with at least $210 in the bag for all those who return tonight.
$16.50 Micro 8-Max Second Chance PKO ($30K GTD)
Darius Žukauskas (5,271,381) is the player to catch, with James Roe (4,385,980) in the best position to do so at the end of 22 levels of play yesterday. Daniel Carl Morgan (4,088,920) is also in a great position out of the 129 players left of the 1,875-strong field.
The $16.50 buy-in will secure someone $2,083 for the win but that number will in reality be much higher, once the bounties have been taken into account.
Player of the Championship Leaderboard
Partypoker’s Kristen Bicknell still leads the Player of the Championship leaderboard, but WPT champion Scott Margereson has pulled back some of the distance between them. Artur Martirosian remains in third, while Pascal Hartmann moves up into fourth, pushing Gabriele Lepore down a place to fifth.
Rising Star Leaderboard
In the Rising Star leaderboard, Radjendernath Chigharoe is still ahead of his competition. The only change in the top five, is that Arturs Barkevics has improved his points total, bringing him closer to the four players ahead of him.
Read about the two leaderboards in more detail by clicking here.
Tonight’s schedule
