RSS Feed

Tech Support

After 13 hours in the beautiful King's Casino in Rozvadov, Ukraine's Mykhailo Gutyi has won the coveted gold WSOPE bracelet and the first-place prize of €61,299 for beating 386 other entries in Event #4: €1,100 No-Limit Hold'em Turbo Bounty Hunter.

This is the sixth bracelet for Ukraine, and Gutyi joins the illustrious list of Ukranian bracelet winners which already includes Oleksii Kovalchuk, Eugene Katchalov, Igor Dubinsky and Oleksandr Shcherbak. This is also Gutyi's biggest live cash ever, he was overjoyed to have won the bracelet, as did his rail. He finished in 2nd place earlier this month in the WSOP Circuit Bounty Hunter tournament, he came 17th in the Circuit Main Event and min-cashed the Colossus. Gutyi mentioned he would now also play the WSOPE Main Event later this month.

The more notable names that joined Gutyi on the final table included Philipp Zukernik, Vangelis Kaimakamis, Angelos Pettas and Darko Stojanovic.

At 5 p.m. local time, the tournament started with almost 100 players in their seats already. The defending champion, Martin Kabrhel sat down from the start and as usual, could be heard from almost every corner of the biggest poker arena of Europe. Also sitting down in the first level was Asi Moshe who won his second bracelet only a few hours before. Kabrhel was off to a good start by eliminating Daniele Ruocco when Kabrhel had turned a straight while Ruocco had flopped trip eights and got no further help on the river.

By the time the 10th level had started, last year's numbers was surpassed when the total number of entries hit 328 players. With reentries possible for the first 12 levels, players were busting and reentering all the time. By the time the 30-minute dinner break started, 380 entries were showing on the clock, with registration closing with 387 entries, in the end, creating a total prize pool of €255,226. Players who bit the dust without cashing include Romain Lewis, Anson Tsang, Carlo Savinelli, Michael Soyza, Narcis-Gabriel Nedelcu, Shaun Deeb, Chris Ferguson, David Urban and many others.

Piotr Wiecek managed to find a double on the bubble with pocket jacks against the ace-king of Thomas Hofmann but Manig Loeser wasn't that lucky with his pocket jacks when he ran those into the ace-queen of Vangelis Kaimakamis. Kaimakamis flopped a queen and no help came on the turn or river for Loeser as he became the bubble boy. The bust-outs then started coming in fast and furiously, players like Renato Kaneoya, Jakob Miegel, Fahredin Mustafov, Rex Clinkscales, Jessica Pilkington and Jeff Madsen.

Kabrhel lost most of his stack when he doubled Dutch Boyd up. Boyd held ace-jack and Kabhrel was trying to get Boyd's bounty with pocket tens. Boyd flopped two pair and improved to a full house on the turn to double up. In the end, Florian Sarnow was the one to collect Kabrhel's bounty in a three-way all-in situation. Sarnow held pocket jacks, Kabrhel ten-seven, and Aaron Duczak had ace-king. The jack on the flop sealed the deal for Sarnow to get a full double-up paid by Duczak and eliminate Kabrhel.

With three tables left, the bust-outs didn't slow down at all, Casey Kastle lost all his chips when he ran pocket kings into the pocket tens of Jonas Kilian who rivered a straight. Duczak's jacks couldn't win against the ace-seven of Andrey Ivlev. Boyd lost a bunch of his chips when he doubled Wiecek up who ended up flopping a set of nines. Maria Lampropulos then dealt Boyd the final blow with jack-nine while Boyd held ace-jack. The nine on the flop meant Boyd's bounty went into her pocket. Cord Garcia was eliminated when his shove was called by Sarnow who held pocket nines and flopped quads.

The turbo format was very noticeable when the final two tables were reached, first Alexander Konovalov was sent to bed, then Roland Israelashvili busted five minutes later. Ten minutes after that, Danny Covyn and Lampropulos were eliminated in a space of 2 minutes from each other. Less than ten minutes later, Rozvadov regular Martin Dietrich ran his pocket treys into the ace-queen of Kaimakamis. A minute later, Fabien Baldelli lost it all to Darko Stojanovic with king-eight. Another minute later, Kilian got kicked out of the tournament when he ran his ace-eight into Sarnow's pocket fives.