The latest event on the European Poker Tour, their former “season ending” event at the Casino de Monte Carlo, is off and running in the principality of Monaco. Starting off the festivities has been the €100,000 Super High Roller Event, which has played out its first two days on Saturday and Sunday. By the end of action on Sunday night, Daniel Dvoress held the lead over the defending champion of the tournament, Sam Greenwood, as the final table prepares for action on Monday.
Over €3 Million Prize Pool
29 players were left from the carnage on Saturday’s Day One, but the players still didn’t know what they were playing for. Late registration (and the unlimited re-entries) was open until the start of action on Sunday, with several players teasing the possibilities that they would get back in the fray. In the end, only four players – three who had been a part of the action, Charlie Carrel, Matthias Eibinger and Jesus Cortes, and one newcomer, Mikita Badziakouski – would deem it advantageous to start with a 250K stack for their €100,000 buy in/re-entry, which set the prize pool for the tournament.
Once the tournament staff finished their counting, the bounty that the men left in the tournament were playing for was announced. With 52 entries, slightly more than a €5 million prize pool (€5,045,040, to be exact) was built up. The final seven players would be the benefactors of that prize pool, with the seventh-place finisher taking the min-cash of €264,860. The top two would earn seven figure cashes, with second place earning €1,147,750 and the eventual champion walking off with a €1,589,190 payday.
Now Let’s Play Some Poker…
With the relative prize pool information in their hands, the players went about getting down to that final table. With such deep stacks, the players weren’t leaving quickly. Although reigning Player of the Year Alex Foxen was the first elimination of the day and Dvoress took out two players in a double knockout soon afterwards, the pace of play was rather glacial. Dvoress and Greenwood would be two players who separated themselves from the pack, however.
It almost wasn’t that way. By the time the tables were redrawn with 16 players left, both Greenwood and Dvoress were barely over their starting stacks – Greenwood at 259K and Dvoress at 270K – and looking way up the leaderboard at two of the men who came back to the action on Sunday afternoon, Carrel and Badziakouski. Carrel led the final 16 with his 1.44 million stack, while Badziakouski was right on his back with his 1.415 million stack.
Dvoress was the first to strike, doubling up through Michael Soyza when his pocket nines survived against Soyza’s A-9 of diamonds. Greenwood would follow up with his own triple up soon afterwards, taking the chips from Badziakouski and Seth Davies in the process. This seemed to give the two players the power to surge up the leaderboard as the sun set on the Mediterranean coast.
Dvoress would crack the million chip mark in eliminating Eibinger from the tournament, his pocket tens winning the race against Eibinger’s A-Q, and Greenwood would follow suit with his own elimination of Soyza when Greenwood flopped a King and rivered a Queen on a 4-7-K-5-Q board to vanquish Soyza’s pocket eights and eliminate Soyza in tenth place. Play surged onward, looking to reach the final six players before calling it a night.
A funny thing happened with this goal, however: the players went into shells and, for nearly three hours, there were no eliminations. With 10 levels and 13 hours of play in for the day, EPT officials decided to end it with the final nine still sitting there, bringing Day 2 of the €100,000 Super High Roller to an end. The remaining nine men will come back on Monday to determine the champion with the goal of first popping the money bubble and then determining a champion.
1.Daniel Dvoress, 3.865 million
2. Sam Greenwood, 1.96 million
3. Jesus Cortes, 1.515 million
4. Mikita Badziakouski, 1.405 million
5. Wiktor Malinowski, 1.36 million
6. Charlie Carrel, 1.34 million
7. Koray Aldemir, 950,000
8. Luc Greenwood, 675,000
9. Sergio Aido, 430,000
But Wait…There’s More!
The €100,000 Super High Roller event is just the kickoff for the EPT Monte Carlo. While the final table of the SHR is going on Monday, the €5000 EPT Main Event will kick off play. For the first time ever, the EPT Main Event will feature a single re-entry that players can utilize. There will also be two Day Ones (Day 1B will be on Tuesday) and the two-Day Ones will come together for the first time on Tuesday. It will lead to the latest EPT Main Event champion being crowned on Saturday.
