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Several champions have been crowned in Casino Barcelona, while other events are underway.
The action is still hot at one of the most beautiful stops of the EPT. The €2,200 National High Roller, the €10,300 High-Roller and the €100,000 Super High Roller have all ended with huge prizes for the champs.
€2,200 EPT Barcelona National High Roller
“I wasn't even going to play this event, because I was sick all week. A friend told me yesterday that I should play and I signed up,”
The event generated a total of 1,527 entries, with some world-class athletes joining [3] the poker pros. However, none of them managed to make the money, as Neymar, Pique and Lo Celso all busted early.
Unlike the soccer players, 229 participants walked away with a cash in their pockets. The players, who returned to the final day were all guaranteed at least a €3,360 payday. However, when the last hand got dealt, only Tuomo Niskanen and Brian Kaufman were sitting at the table, looking to end a marathon day at 3 a.m. local time.
Even though Finland's Niskanen was the fun to eventually raised the trophy, it was Uruguay's Kaufman who walked away with the biggest prize, after securing a deal in the heads-up period. Tuomo received a paycheck of €368,925, while Brian added €432,135 to his bankroll, as the biggest ever score for both of them. The same applies for Spaniard, Ignacio Barcenas, who finished third for €205,040, while Hungarian high-stakes pro, Marton Czuczor picked up €151,880 at the cage.
Final results
| Place | Winner | Country | Prize (€) | Prize ( |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tuomo Niskanen | Finland | €368,925* | $431,298* |
| 2 | Brian Kaufman | Uruguay | €432,135* | $505,195* |
| 3 | Ignacio Barcenas | Spain | €205,040 | $239,705 |
| 4 | Marton Czuczor | Hungary | €151,880 | $177,558 |
| 5 | Milad Oghabian | Netherlands | €119,560 | $139,773 |
| 6 | Oleh Okhotskyi | Ukraine | €90,120 | $105,356 |
| 7 | Leonardo Patacconi | Italy | €65,980 | $77,135 |
| 8 | Bernardo Dias | Brazil | €45,100 | $52,725 |
*after the deal
€10,300 High Roller
"I just want to play and win. When I stop winning, I stop playing."
The €10K event attracted 93 players, but with 31 re-entries, the total prize pool grew to €1,202,800. Some real heavy-weights set down to play, with Mustapha Kanit, Adrian Mateos, Ivan Luca, Daniel Dvoress and Cary Katz all amongst the lucky 17 to reach the money. T
he final day started with a real suck-out. Orpen Kisacikoglu shoved with pocket sevens, only to get called by the pocket rockets of Denys Shafikov's. However, Orpen managed to spike the third seven on the flop to bust Shafikov and reduce to field to the official final table of 8.
Luc Greenwood was the first player to be eliminated from the final table (8th; €40,300). He was followed by Goran Mandic (7th; €53,500), Liv Boeree (6th; €70,000) and Dario Sammartino (5th; €88,800) and then Bahram Chobineh (4th; €110,100) and Orpen Kisacikoglu (3rd; €133,000) joined the former on the rail.
Soyza used his aggressive style to defeat Kai Lehto and his "Four to six, I am not sure how many," title in 2018, for €302,500. Lehto earned €204,500 for his runner-up finish.
Final results
| Place | Winner | Country | Prize (in EUR) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Michael Soyza | Malaysia | €302,500 |
| 2 | Kai Lehto | Finland | €204,500 |
| 3 | Orpen Kisacikoglu | Turkey | €133,000 |
| 4 | Bahram Chobineh | Iran | €110,100 |
| 5 | Dario Sammartino | Italy | €88,800 |
| 6 | Liv Boeree | United Kingdom | €70,000 |
| 7 | Goran Mandic | Croatia | €53,500 |
| 8 | Luc Greenwood | Canada | €40,300 |
€100,000 Super High Roller
“I’m running pretty hot lately. Just being lucky – that’s it!"
2018 has certainly been a great year for Michael, but if someone made an even more impressive run it is none other than Mikita Badziakouski. The Belarussian earned $11.5 million in the past 8 months and managed to take down the €100K SHR for another $1.9 million. The event generated 54 entries, to create a prize pool of €5,239,080 and €1,650,300 for the winner.
Only 9 players returned for the final day and it only took 4 blind levels for Mikita to close out the tournament. This was the first ever EPT victory for the high-stakes crusher. Mikita beat Ahadpur Khangah in the duel, the Iranian player earned €1,191,900.
Other high-roller regulars, to make deep runs were Timothy Adams (4th; €575,300) and Benjamin Pollak (5th; €445,300). “It feels great,” said Badziakouski after the win. “I’m running pretty hot lately. Just being lucky – that’s it! It was the usual High Roller field, and the same structure. Only this time we had a really long bubble; we were nine-handed for three or something hours. Then it finished really fast.”
Mikita also praised his opponent after raising the trophy. "Khangah played really aggressively. It’s a pleasure to play with him, and I definitely didn’t expect it.”
Final results
| Position | Name | Country | Payout (EUR) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mikita Badziakouski | Belarus | € 1,650,300 |
| 2 | Ahadpur Khangah | Iran | € 1,191,900 |
| 3 | Matthias Eibinger | Austria | € 759,680 |
| 4 | Timothy Adams | Canada | € 576,300 |
| 5 | Benjamin Pollak | France | € 445,300 |
| 6 | Rui Neves Ferreira | Portugal | € 340,550 |
| 7 | Jean Ferreira | Canada | € 275,050 |
[4]
The Main Event and the €50,000 Single-Day High Roller are both underways. Day1A ended with Ben Wilinofsky on top. The Canadian player accumulated 330,000 chips. Patrick Clarke is the early chip leader of the Day1b, he currently sits on 102,000.
The €50,000 Single-Day High Roller kicked off a few hours earlier and expected to end today. Englishman, Jack Salter (395,000) has a big lead over Chi Zhang (255,000), but a number of high-roller crushers will make sure Salter will have a lot to do if he wants to close out the whole thing. David Peters, Mustapha Kanit, Sam Greenwood all entered the field amongst others.
Stay tuned for the updates!