Concluding their first ever stop in South Africa, Germany’s Dominik Nitsche, to put it bluntly, dominated the field to win the World Poker Tour’s Emperors Palace Poker Classic in Johannesburg this morning (East Coast time).
The tournament, which started on Monday, drew a respectable field of 230 players and Nitsche was in a position of power through the preliminary days of the event. He was never outside of the Top Ten throughout the event and came to the final table as the chip leader with 2.915 million in chips. His opponents – William Ross (1.285 million), Jason Strauss (1.27 million), Jerome Bradpiece (930K), Wesley Weigand (455K) and Andrew Anthony (365K) – were trying to derail the budding German superstar, but it seemed as if the tournament was destined to be Nitsche’s from the start of the final table.
Anthony was the first departure from the final table, pushing his K♥ Q♥ from the button and leaving the blinds to determine whether to take him on or not. Bradpiece, in the big blind, woke up with pocket tens and made the call, putting Anthony’s tournament existence on the line. The flop and turn were devoid of paint, but the river card brought one; it was a Jack, however, and Anthony was eliminated in sixth place.
Following Anthony’s elimination, Nitsche began to ramp up his aggression on the final table. He flopped a set of eights against Strauss to catapult up to 3.8 million in chips then eliminated Strauss in fifth place with pocket Jacks against Strauss’ pocket deuces. Although holding a dominant lead at this point, Nitsche would suffer a couple of setbacks as he doubled up both Ross and Bradpiece to come back to the field a bit.
Ross would be responsible for the knockout of Weigand in fourth when Ross’ pocket Queens dodged Weigand’s A-9, but he would go down to Bradpiece after Bradpiece looked down to find pocket Queens against a button push A-10 from Ross. Down to just Bradpiece and Nitsche, the German held the lead with slightly more than four million chips against Bradpiece’s 2.8 million stack.
On the very first hand of heads up play, Bradpiece would take over the lead from Nitsche. On an A-A-4-Q-5 board, Bradpiece check called three bets from Nitsche and showed a lowly pocket pair of sixes. It was good enough, however, as Nitsche slid his cards into the muck and Bradpiece emerged from the hand as the chip leader with 600K more chips than Nitsche. He would extend that lead as the level concluded, holding 4.3 million in chips to Nitsche’s 2.6 million.
Nitsche would not be denied, however, as he went back on the attack with the beginning of the new level (30K-60K, 10K ante). He chipped away at Bradpiece’s advantage to essentially draw back to even before the hand that, for all practical purposes, decided the tournament came up between the players. After making a three bet pre-flop against Bradpiece, Nitsche continued to fire on each street of an A-Q-6-7-2 board. He would turn up Big Slick at the end, taking down the pot as Bradpiece pushed his A-J into the muck; the hand pushed Nitsche up over the five million mark, leaving Bradpiece with only 1.8 million to continue the battle.
Approximately a half-hour later, the tournament was over. Bradpiece raised from the button to 160K and, after a moment’s pause, Nitsche moved all in against him. Bradpiece made the call, tabling his J♣ 10♣, but immediately saw he was in tough shape against Nitsche’s A♣ 4♣. The 7-6-5 flop only made things better for Nitsche, giving him an unnecessary straight draw and, once the turn brought another six and the river another seven, he was the champion of the WPT Emperors Palace Poker Classic.
1. Dominik Nitsche, $206,153
2. Jerome Bradpiece, $121,477
3. William Ross, $80,985
4. Wesley Weigand, $56,321
5. Jason Strauss, $41,965
6. Andrew Anthony, $32,394
2012 has truly been Nitsche’s “coming out” party on the international tournament poker stage. He earned four cashes during this year’s World Series of Poker, including his first WSOP bracelet, then took down two more cashes at the WSOP Europe. Earlier this month, Nitsche won a side tournament during the European Poker Tour’s stop in San Remo and, with this victory, pushes his earnings for 2012 to almost the million dollar mark. The WPT win now places Nitsche within an EPT Main Event title in completing poker’s “Triple Crown,” something that should come quite soon for one of the breakout stars of tournament poker this year.
