By Lisa Yiasemides
Many of you will have been waiting for Knockout week, and although the highlight of this week – the $3,200 Knockout Championship – doesn’t start for another two days, there are some incredible side events to get you warmed up in the meantime.
Last night, there were two more WPT winners, with $530 and $109 Knockout events over on partypoker.com.
As well as Mega Sats taking place tonight and two more Knockout comps for you to enjoy, there have been some interesting changes in the Leaderboards, which you can read all about a little later.
$530 7-Max Knockout ($100K GTD)
The popularity of knockout tournament continues, with 273 entries generating $136,500 for the prize pool and smashing the guarantee. A one-day event, it took seven and a half hours to reach a conclusion with many big names having deep runs but also many finding themselves out of the running early.
Oleg Vasylchenko (273rd) was the first to go and online powerhouse Simon Mattsson (260th), Simon Deadman (257th), Big Game winner Espen Uhlen Jørstad (255th), Pablo Brito Silva (232nd), Fabio Sperling (231st), Steven Van Zadelhoff (221st) and Joseph Cheong (202nd) were among those who busted quickly. They each jumped back in the game only to finish outside of the money for a second and final time.
Lucas Reeves (192nd), Scott Margereson (158th, $125), Thomas Boivin (153rd, $187), Pavel Plesuv (156th), Alexandru Papazian (141st), Kenny Hallaert (110th), Jeff Gross (92nd), Chris Moorman (82nd, $250), Manig Loeser (66th, $500), Alex Foxen (61st, $500) and Viktor Ustimov (39th, $687) were just a few of the other big names in the running who hit the rail before the cash was reached.
Adam Reynolds exited on the bubble, but the Brit banked $437 in bounties to make most of his investment back, whereas Robin Ylitalo (34th) was the last person to leave with nothing. Julien Achard Stropoli (30th) just made it into the money, getting $632 for the min-cash, plus $312 in bounties. Brock Wilson (26th) also min-cashed and added $375 in bounties to his winnings.
Niklas Åstedt went one better, taking $686 from the main prize pool plus an extra $562 in bounty prizes for placing 23rd but Stefan Jedlicka (19th, $686 + $2,437 bounties) made big impression on the night, eliminating nine players before he faced the same fate.
Georgios Kapalas (12th, $1,236 + $1,722 bounties) came close to the final table but not as close as Diego Bittar (8th, $1,820 + $2,609 bounties) whose departure was the last before the final table was reached. Damian Żurek (7th, $2,404 + $687 bounties) and Peter Jetten (6th, $3,285 + $2,226 bounties) fell next, with Manfred Rath (5th), Stewart Alexander Kilpatrick (4th) and Daniel Colpoys (3rd) right behind them.
Yuri Dzivielevski
There were just two players left now and Rui Miguel Nougueira Da Silva E Sousa was heads up against Yuri Dzivielevski, a formidable opponent with $7 million in recorded online tournament results (pocketfives.com). Still, Da Silva E Sousa didn’t let that hold him back and he came out on top to bring seven and a half hours of play to an end. He takes home the title and trophy, plus that all-important $27,896.
$109 Mini 7-Max Knockout ($50K GTD)
The Mini event featured a very attractive guarantee of its own and the numbers reflected that, with $71,000 generated for the prize pool via the 710 entries, and Daniel Rezaei outlasted them all.
Daniel Rezaei
Once again, the field was littered with notable names. Sylvain Loosli (519th), reigning WPT Germany Champion Christopher Pütz (467th), Gianluca Speranza (392nd), Arsenii Karmatckii (319th), Renato Nomura (231st, $25 bounties), Paul Höfer (227th, $75 bounties), Daniel Wilson (194th, $62 bounties), Boris Angelov (126th, $50 bounties) and Ivan Luca (106th, $178 bounties) were a handful of the players to bust before the bubble burst.
The bubble boy was Gonzalo Daniel Lopez (97th) who actually returned more than he invested, after banking $156 in bounties. Still, his exit meant money would be distributed around to the remaining 96 players.
Dominik Panka (29th, $197 +$253 bounties), Lars Kamphues (14th, $313 + $328 bounties) and Chris Moorman (11th, $454 + $637 bounties) were all in the mix in the latter stages of the competition but didn’t do what Firas Hendi (7th, $933 + $860 bounties) and David Lloyd (6th, $1,362, + $1,301 bounties) did – reach the final table.
It would be almost eight hours before the winner was decided, once Rezaei had defeated Kevin Gibson heads up to take a total of $11,299 for the win.
Leaderboards
Player of the Championship
Kristen Bicknell has pulled away from Lars Kamphues in second, after taking down the $5,200 High Roller a couple of days ago. Nick Petrangelo’s win in the 6-Max Championship has netted him enough points to ascend him into third place. 8-Max Champion Gavin Cochrane is now in fourth and Sam Grafton in fifth place.
Rising Star
Boris Angelov remains ahead of the pack, while Mats Ullereng has jumped up into second place, pushing Radjendernath Chigharoe down into third.
The winner of the Rising Star leaderboard receives $10,000 – for the Player of the Championship, it is $50,000! – and you can read more about both by clicking here.
Tonight’s schedule
