The Dublin edition of this tournament went on until gone 5am. At the Grand Final in Monaco, play had to be paused and restarted the following day due to how late it ran into the morning. But here in Malta, it took just under 12 hours of play for us to find our €10K Single Re-entry champion. His name is Jakub ‘Olorionek’ Michalak, he final tabled the WCOOP Main Event this year, and he’s now €178,403 richer. Here’s how it all went down.
We had a total of 64 players pony up the €10K, while 20 of those fired another bullet, creating a total prize pool of €814,800. Just 11 players got paid, but compared to previous editions of this single day tournament we reached the money relatively quickly.
Rewinding back to the start of the day, Max Silver was the first double casualty. He fired two bullets and was out on both before the end of Level 4. Mikita Badziakouski, Connor Drinan, Dario Sammartino, Nick Petrangelo, Jean-Noel Thorel, Alexandros Kolonias, and Sam Greenwood are just a few of those who re-entered. Greenwood’s second bullet was a particularly short ordeal – in and out in around 30 minutes.
One of the many ‘man of the moment’ players in poker right now is New Zealand’s David Yan. At the end of September he enjoyed a deep run in the Eureka6 Hamburg Main Event (16th – €3,880), which he was only playing because it was on his way to a tournament in Berlin. He went and won that one for € 124,635. Then Yan turned up in Malta and took down the €25K Super High Roller for €465,800. However, it wasn’t his day today. He got unlucky to bust when his ace-ten was outdrawn by Charlie Carrel’s ace-eight.
The players took a 75-minute dinner break around 7:30pm and just 17 players returned. Scott Seiver had the chip lead with 850,000 and blinds at 8K/16K, good for 53 big blinds. Needless to say in a one day turbo, this wasn’t the deepest stacked event. Seiver’s nearest competitors were Italy’s Rocco Palumbo (840,000), followed by Pratyush Buddiga (810,000) – who entered this event with just 20 minutes left of registration for a 12 big blind stack.
Last year’s winner of this event in Malta was Mr Steve O’Dwyer, and the ‘Irishman’ got off to a great start today winning four-bet pots with abandon. He rode that wave right into the money, eventually busting in 10th place for €20,400. However, Romania’s Pasquale Grimaldi wouldn’t be able to earn a dime, suffering a brutal flush over flush to Charlie Carrel which crippled him and would see him make a muted exit in the next hand for a 12th place finish.
Diego Zeiter was the next to bust, followed by O’Dwyer, which meant we had our final table of nine. Here’s how they stacked up:
1. Behzad Ahadpour – 525,000
2. Rocco Palumbo – 660,000
3. Pratyush Buddiga – 1.38 million
4. Morten Mortensen – 285,000
5. Jakub Michalak – 1.31 million
6. Scott Seiver – 975,000
7. Orpen Kisacikoglu – 305,000
8. Charlie Carrel – 2.44 million
9. Adrian Mateos – 520,000
Morten Mortensen wouldn’t last too long, getting it in with sixes against Scott Seiver’s nines and not catching any help.
With eight left Rocco Palumbo managed to double up, meaning the short stacks became Adrian Mateos and the fun loving guy from Iran via New York, Behzad Ahadpour. This guy was truly the life and soul of this tournament, having fun with reckless abandon – from raising and playing pots having only seen one of his cards, to trying to re-arrange his flights home at the table once he found out another €10K tournament was taking place tomorrow.
Ahadpour would get pretty lucky to treble up through Pratyush Buddiga and eliminate Adrian Mateos. It was a three-way all-in pre-flop and Buddiga had queens, Ahadpour had tens, and Mateos had ace-queen. A ten on the river sent the Spaniard out and halved Buddiga’s stack.
Buddiga’s luck wouldn’t improve and he’d be the next man out. He shoved over Ahadpour’s raise with pocket sixes and was called by the king-queen, and a queen on the turn saw his chips ship Ahadpour’s way.
That took us down to six, where it truly became the Behzad Ahadpour show. His demise was pretty entertaining to say the least; first, he doubled up Jakub Michalak. Then he doubled up Rocco Palumbo; then Ahadpour open shoved and was called by Scott Seiver with ace-ten. “I’m just so tired, I need to go,” said Ahadpour, showing the ten-eight. However, he wasn’t going just yet. An eight appeared on the turn to double him up, hurting Seiver’s chances in the process. Then finally Ahadpour was all-in with the eight-five against Michalak’s pocket fives on an 8♣ 5♠ 10♦ flop. A bit of bad luck, sure, but Ahadpour wasn’t dissapointed when was eliminated. Heck, he even got a round of applause from the table and the rail!
Scott Seiver and Orpen Kisacikoglu would leave us next. Jakub Michalak’s ace-six sucked out against Seiver’s pocket jacks by hitting an ace, then Kisacikoglu was all-in for three big blinds with nine-six and couldn’t beat Charlie Carrel’s king-queen. And then there were three.
It was time to discuss a deal. Charlie Carrel had the chip lead with 3.66 million, playing Jakub Michalav’s 2.905 million and Rocco Palumbo’s 1.735 million. They cut an ICM deal that gave Carrel the lion’s share and kept €17,475, the trophy, and the glory still to play for.
After a few chips had passed back and forth, Charlie Carrel’s chances were struck down when he called Rocco Palumbo’s three-bet shove with ace-seven and was up against ace-queen. He couldn’t find any help and a hand or two later he was out.
Palumbo had the lead going into heads-up but things weren’t going his way. He got coolered in one hand when his two pair was beaten by Michalav’s bigger two pair, then lost a string of small pots to bring his stack quite low. He did make one brilliant call though to give himself a fighting chance; he called three barrels (the third of which was an all-in bet) with just a pair of fives on an A♥ 5♠ 2♦ 10♠ 6♣ board and was right, as Michalav had king-queen for air.
But in the end it came down to a race. Deuces for Michalav, king-nine for Palumbo, the ducks held up and we had ourselves a winner.
Congratulations to our latest EPT13 Malta champion, Poland’s Jakub Michalav.
EPT13 Malta €10,000 NLHE Single Re-entry 8 Handed
Dates: October 24, 2016
Players: 64
Re-entries: 20
Prize pool: €814,800
* Indicates a deal was made
Place | Winner | Country | Sponsor | Prize (EUR) |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Jakab Michalak | Poland | 178,403* | |
2 | Rocco Palumbo | Italy | 138,763* | |
3 | Charlie Carrel | United Kingdom | 170,754* | |
4 | Orpen Kisacikoglu | Turkey | 80,250 | |
5 | Scott Seiver | USA | 63,550 | |
6 | Bahzad Ahadpour | Iran | 49,700 | |
7 | Pratyush Buddiga | USA | 39,100 | |
8 | Adrian Mateos | Spain | 30,550 | |
9 | Morten Mortensen | Denmark | 23,200 | |
10 | Steve O’Dwyer | Ireland | 20,400 | |
11 | Diego Zeiter | Germany | 20,400 |
Jack Stanton is a freelance contributor to the PokerStars Blog. Photos by Jules Pochy and Manuel Kovsca.
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