All week they’ve been battling, but the end is coming for the 2018 World Series of Poker €10,000 Main Event. At the start of Day 5, a chance at history exists as former World Champion Ryan Riess is still in contention; if he were to win, he would become only the second player to ever with the Europe Main Event and the World Championship (Phil Hellmuth was the first). Along with the story of Riess, Koray Aldemir is still in contention, setting up for a great day of action on Thursday.
From 50 to 12
Fifty players returned on Wednesday, looking to make their run at the King’s Casino in Rozvadov, Czech Republic one they wouldn’t forget. Riess was the leader at the start of the day, but a host of international players were looking to take him down. Niall Farrell, 2018 WSOP Europe bracelet winner Norbert Szecsi, Day 2 chip leader Dario Sammartino, Day 1A chip leader Marco Slacanac and Vladimir Troyanovskiy were all awaiting in the field as the “shuffle up and deal” call rang out.
Riess didn’t waste a moment in administering his dominance on his table. On the very first hand of the day, Michael Sklenicka opened up the betting in the hijack and Riess, in the big blind, three-bet all in. Sklenicka had been joking with Riess prior to the start of action that Riess was going to double him up and Sklenicka made the call with a resounding, “It’s time for the double!” Sklenicka plopped his stack and pocket Queens in the center of the felt, but Riess went him one better; Riess’ pocket Kings had Sklenicka drawing extremely thin. After the board didn’t have a Queen but put an unnecessary King on the river for a set, Sklenicka was out and “the rich got richer” as Riess extended his lead.
As Riess lorded over his patch of felt, other players began to make their moves. Troyanovskiy was able to get a key double up through Slacanac to crack the million-chip mark, while Michal Schuh showed another cooler of pocket Aces to Szecsi’s pocket Kings to eliminate the 2018 bracelet winner and shoot over the three million chip mark. Jack Sinclair also put his name into the mix, taking a sizeable pot off of Sammartino to burst into the upper echelons of the ladder with just over 2.5 million chips.
For every rise, however, there were those that fell. Along with Szecsi, Sammartino couldn’t recover from the loss to Sinclair, departing soon after their clash. Slacanac, according to WSOP reports, was quite tilted after his loss to Troyanovskiy and tried to get those chips back after Troyanovskiy opened another pot. After pushing all in, Slacanac forgot there were others still left to act, including Gary Hasson, who called from the cutoff. This gave Troyanovskiy the opportunity to get out of the way and Hasson’s Big Slick had Slacanac’s A-6 off suit dominated. A Jack high board didn’t bring anything that would help Slacanac as he hit the rail.
The carnage didn’t stop with those men, either. Allen Kessler (40th place, €23,025), Jack Salter (37th, €23,025), Ognjen Sekularac (36th, €23.025), Sylvain Loosli (34th, €23,025), Farrell (27th, €26,712) and Igor Kurganov (22nd, €31,623) found spots on the rail as the play entered the evening hours. By the time Irish poker legend Andy Black was eliminated in 13th place, his A-10 cruelly run down by Laszlo Bujtas’ K-J on an 8-7-2-K-3 board, WSOP officials halted play to bring back the final 12 for action on Thursday:
1. Laszlo Bujtas, 7.105 million
2. Koray Aldemir, 6.89 million
3. Milos Skrbic, 6.125 million
4. Ryan Riess, 5.98 million
5. Jack Sinclair, 4.77 million
6. Ming Xi, 4.635 million
7. Vladimir Troyanovskiy, 4.255 million
8. Ihor Yerofieiev, 3.175 million
9. Bulcsu Lukacs, 3.125 million
10. Stoyan Obreshkov, 2.855 million
11. Krasimir Yankov, 2.365 million
12. Dominik Matejka, 1.68 million
Play has resumed at the King’s Casino with the plans to play down to the final six players. Those six fortunate souls will then return for the final table play on Friday, where the eventual champion will take the WSOP bracelet and the €1,122,239 first place prize.
Shaun Deeb Takes WSOP Player of the Year Championship
It was pretty much a foregone conclusion when he showed up in the Czech Republic, but Shaun Deeb’s massively successful 2018 WSOP run has ended with him taking the Player of the Year championship.
Deeb really wasn’t threatened by anyone at the King’s Casino, although Michael Addamo’s bracelet run in Event #9, the €100,000 Super High Roller, brought him at least within shot of trying to wrest the title from Deeb. In the end, Deeb’s play throughout the schedule in Las Vegas and Rozvadov, however, was more than enough to give him the championship.
1. Shaun Deeb, 5073.92 points
2. Benjamin Yu, 3746.04
3. Joe Cada, 3531.86
4. John Hennigan, 3499.91
5. Scott Bohlman, 3155.88
6. Michael Addamo, 3028.78
7. Paul Volpe, 2859.76
8. Anthony Zinno, 2593.34
9. Eric Baldwin, 2516.30
10. Romain Lewis, 2460.14
