It has all come down to one dramatic final day at the 2019 World Series of Poker Europe. 11 men will return to the King’s Casino in Rozvadov on Monday to determine the champion of the Colossus. Also important is the race for the WSOP Player of the Year, with one contender left with a shot to take the title – again.
Culling the Field from 313 to…
313 players stepped to the tables on Sunday with dreams of the final WSOP bracelet of 2019 dancing in their heads. It would be a marathon of a day, more than 12 hours to be exact, to bring the field down to a manageable number – making the final table was thought to be a long shot at best. Surprisingly, however, the players nearly pulled that trick off, knocking players off at a rate that was stunning.
There were plenty of familiar names who would take their bit of cash from the €1.3 million-plus prize pool. Roland Israelashvili, Erik Cajelais and Victor ‘Isildur1’ Blom were just a few of the names to take some cash. Chris Ferguson would make a deep drive into the WSOP Europe Main Event, eventually being knocked out in 23rd place. Finally, former “November Niner” Pierre Neuville nearly captured the attention of the world again with another stunning run in a major WSOP event, coming up just short of the final day when he was eliminated in 18th place.
One man who had a huge impact on the day’s events is the chip leader, Mick Heder. Starting the day with a decent stack of 369,000, Heder seemingly made no mistakes on his way to ringing up a chip stack of 12.1 million chips by the time the dust settled. Although he has a massive stack, Heder will have to contend with two very hungry pros that are lurking behind him.
1. Mick Heder, 12.1 million
2. Avraham Dayan, 8.7 million
3. Shaun Deeb, 8.1 million
4. Christoph Peper, 7.25 million
5. Dieter Becker, 6.625 million
6. Bertrand Grospellier, 6.45 million
7. Pasquale Braco, 5 million
8. Sergii Karpov, 4.725 million
9. Francesco Candelari, 4.05 million
10. Alessandro Pezzoli, 2.675 million
11. Marian Kubis, 2.15 million
So, You’re Saying There’s a Chance?
When it comes to the WSOP Player of the Year race, four men had the hopes of taking down the prestigious title at the start of the day. By nightfall on the Czech countryside, only one of those men would still have the dream, but he’s got some work to do.
The four men who would decide the championship – POY leader Daniel Negreanu, two-time 2019 WSOP bracelet winner Robert Campbell, defending WSOP POY Shaun Deeb and 2019 WSOP Europe Main Event final tablist Anthony Zinno – were close together at the start of the day. Quickly, however, they began to fall by the wayside.
First to go was Zinno, who would go out in 274th place to be eliminated from contention (Zinno would have had to win the event and not have any of the other three competitors make the final table). Next to go was Negreanu, who moved his final chips in with only a K-4 and was called down by Remco Verbakel’s A-2. Once the board ran dry for both players, ‘Kid Poker’ was out of the tournament in 201st place.
Campbell and Deeb would make excellent runs, with Deeb’s stack yo-yoing through the day, before one of them would face the tournament poker Grim Reaper. It was Neuville who took out Campbell in 159th place, leaving Deeb as the “Last Man Standing” with a shot to take the POY title. As the players began to fall through the remainder of Sunday evening and Deeb only got stronger, the possibilities of Deeb repeating as the WSOP POY – something that has never happened in the history of the award – became a realistic possibility.
Heading into the final day of the WSOP in third place, Deeb (through entirely unofficial calculations) would need to finish in sixth place or higher to earn more points than Negreanu and seize the POY. Can he pull it off? Or will he come up short? It will be just another part of the drama as the 2019 World Series of Poker Europe concludes with this story and the championship of the Colossus.
