Wrapping up a record breaking two week stay along the coast of the Mediterranean, John Juanda emerged as the champion of the European Poker Tour Main Event in Barcelona, Spain, on Sunday, picking up his first tournament cash in well over a year.
To start the penultimate day of the EPT Barcelona, the nine men left in the tournament still had to make one more elimination before they would have the official EPT final table. Denys Shafikov was crushing the field with his 17.515 million in chips as Steve Warburton was way behind him in second place with 7.18 million chips. Juanda was poised in the middle of the pack at this time but, with 4.04 million in chips, he didn’t look likely to be the “last man standing” in this tournament.
On the very first hand of the day, the official final table was set. Frederik Jensen opened up the betting and Victor Bogdanov, one of the shorter stacks on the table, decided to push his remaining stack to the center. Jensen made the call and tabled an A-K, vastly ahead of Bogdanov’s A-7, and a King on the flop pushed him further into the lead. Although a potential flush draw would come for Bogdanov on the turn, an Ace on the river instead improved Jensen to Aces up and sent Bogdanov home as the final table “bubble boy.”
It is said often in tournament poker that you have to win some races to make a deep run and that adage was never truer for Juanda than today. On only the fifth hand of action, Juanda pumped the betting to 320K and Andreas Samuelsson, after some contemplation, put out a three bet. Juanda didn’t pause long, making it four bets for 1.48 million and, after Samuelsson moved all in, called the bet instantly.
It was that classic race, Juanda’s Big Slick against Samuelsson’s pocket Queens and the 4-8-4-9 flop and turn didn’t bring any help for Juanda. Down to six outs, Juanda was able to spike one of them when the A♦ surfaced on the river. Instead of heading out of the tournament in eighth place, Juanda rocketed into the second place slot with more than eight million chips as Samuelsson was left with less than a two million chip stack.
Juanda would go on to knock off Amir Touma in seventh place, but he was in a difficult place after Shafikov knocked out Rainer Kempe in fifth place. With only four players remaining, Juanda was on the short stack looking up at Shafikov, Warburton and Jensen as talk began about a deal. Realizing his short stack wasn’t going to earn him a healthy chunk of the remaining prize pool, Juanda chose not to actively pursue the deal and, after it fell through on another front, play resumed.
Over nearly 50 hands, Juanda instead concentrated on rebuilding his stack. By Hand 141, Juanda had pulled into second place and was calling the all-in of Shafikov, his A-6 holding court over Shafikov’s Q-10, to eliminate Shafikov in fourth and push Juanda right behind Warburton for the chip lead.
Deal negotiations once again heated up and this time Juanda was a more active participant. Breaking the remaining prize pool down by ICM, Warburton guaranteed himself €941,613, Juanda €922,593 and Jensen €810,294 for their week of work. They left €100,000 and the first championship of Season 12 on the EPT on the table to play for.
By the time the trio took a dinner break, Juanda had stretched out to almost 28 million chips, more than twice what Warburton held and almost three times the stack of Jensen. On Hand 201, Juanda would eliminate Jensen from the tournament and, sitting with nearly a 4:1 lead over Warburton, it was but a matter of time before Juanda sealed the deal. On the final hand, Juanda upped the betting off the button and Warburton put out a three-bet. When Juanda four-bet his hand, Warburton moved all in and was immediately called. When the hands were up, all Warburton could say was, “Oh, sick!”
Juanda not only hand pocket Queens in his hand, Warburton had picked up a decent hand in his own right with pocket eights. There was still the formality of the board, however, which provided some drama in giving Warburton runner-runner outs with a 10-J-2. A second deuce on the turn eliminated the straight possibilities, but Warburton still had two outs to the eight to keep the tournament going. Instead, the river came with a nine to give a hard earned title to Juanda.
John Juanda, 1,022,593*
Steve Warburton, 941,613*
Frederik Jensen, 810,294*
Denys Shafikov, 405,100
Rainer Kempe, 320,400
Andreas Samuelsson, 253,400
Amir Touma, 194,100
Mario Sanchez, 137,080
* – indicates three-way deal
The victory by Juanda marks his first tournament score in over a year. The last time Juanda earned a tournament cash was in July 2014 at the World Series of Poker Championship Event, where he finished in 293rd place for a $33,734 score. The victory also moves Juanda up the ladder in all-time tournament earnings, passing Jonathan Duhamel to take over ninth place on that leaderboard with over $17 million in earnings.
With the close of festivities in Barcelona, the EPT will take a bit of a siesta before their next event. The EPT will head back to Malta in October with a slate of events set to begin on October 21. The EPT Main Event will be held from October 25-31 and there will be three different High Roller events also on the slate. While the Malta event has proven to be extremely popular with its inaugural stop, it will be tough to top the record-breaking fortnight that the EPT has spent in Spain.
