Late last night, as the Single Day €25,000 High Roller event went through its death throes, there came a yelp from the other side of the tournament stage. I must say, it sounded like someone else’s death throes, such was its timbre.
On further investigation, however, no one had died. It was actually a squeal of triumph. Another final table–the €2,000 no limit turbo–was playing to its winner too and Francesco Delfoco was in a three-handed duel with Joao Vieira and Ole Schemion.
It’s probably fair to say that Delfoco was the underdog in that particular match-up. He was, after all, facing High Roller regulars, one of whom had won the EPT Player of the Year and the other of whom had narrowly missed out on that honour. But neither Schemion nor Vieira is prone to yelping, which is how come it became immediately clear that Delfoco had closed it out.
The Italian player knocked out Vieira first and then Schemion and bagged a second title of this festival. Having beaten a field of 438 to with the €300 no limit turbo earlier in the week, Delfoco had done it again in a tournament with six times the buy in.
His triumph this time, from a field of 152, earned him €68,550, which is worth shouting about.
David Spencer, Rumen Nanev and Diogo Cardoso were the other side event winners yesterday, taking down the €500 Stud Hi/Lo, €1,000 PLO and €500 Hyper Turbo, respectively.
The stud tournament, as ever, took an absolute age to complete and Spencer’s victory, worth €5,280, was a triumph as much of stamina as poker skills. That tournament moved on to the stage much sooner than any of the other finals, but was still slowly progressing as the neighbouring events went through their boom-or-bust closing stages.
Eventually Spencer, who is over in the Czech Republic from his home in Canada, closed things out as Friday gave way to Saturday.
Nanev is an Omaha side event beast and has won tournaments in Sanremo, London, Monaco and now twice in Prague in this format. He has also, of course, made an EPT Main Event final table, so is not at all bad with only two cards. However, give him four and he’s untouchable.
Nanev’s win, beating Najib Hassani heads up, earned him close to €30,000.
Cardoso was among a rowdy bunch of late-night turbo players who bounced on to the final table stage when Jean-Noel Thorel and Rainer Kempe were heads up for the €25K title. Jason Wheeler was among them too, but he went out in fourth, leaving Cardoso and his countryman Andre Dos Santos to oust Venezuela’s Dany Kreidieh in third before chopping directly heads up.
They took €17,505 apiece.
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