After coming to the final table with a sizeable chip lead, Belgium’s Davidi Kitai was able to fend off the challenges of his opponents to capture the championship of the European Poker Tour stop in Berlin, Germany, Saturday night.
Kitai came to the final table with 5.695 million in chips with his closest pursuer, Bahadir Kilickeser, more than a million chips behind him. Also in the mix were the underrated Andrew Chen and Day Three chip leader Marc Wright. In front of the cameras streaming this particular EPT final table over the internet (with a one hour delay), the eight gentlemen set about the task of determining the champion.
From the start, Kitai kept up the pressure on his opponents that had driven him to the chip lead on Friday. He would chop some chips away from Kilickeser to move over the six million mark, but Kilickeser would get them back by eliminating Pratyush Buddiga in eighth place when he was able to turn a ten (with A-10) against Buddiga’s A-Q. By the time the first break came, Kitai still maintained the lead, but Chen had moved into second place with Wright and Kilickeser following.
Over the next level, Kitai firmly established his place as the table captain. He would knock out Wright in seventh place to push his stack over the nine million mark while Chen attempted to keep pace. After Mario Puccini’s pocket Queens eliminated Cesar Garcia’s A-K on a blank board in sixth place, the final five men continued the fight for the latest EPT crown.
Puccini would prove to be a thorn in Kitai’s side as the next level began. Puccini bluffed off Kitai in one hand, then took chips off both Chen and Kitai to come close to the Belgian on the leaderboard. It was Chen, however, who would fight back to become the main challenger against Kitai when the Canadian knocked off Kilickeser in fifth place.
Chen, Kitai and Puccini would continue to joust each other over the span of the next level before a misstep saw one of them removed. After doubling up Andre Morath when Morath turned a flush against Puccini’s top pair of Aces, Kitai would administer the killing blow to Puccini’s EPT title hopes. After Kitai pushed a raise in with pocket Queens from the small blind, Puccini attempted to push him off his hand by moving all in from the big blind with J-10 with no success. Kitai called and, once the board brought no surprises, Puccini was out in fourth place.
Following that hand, Kitai had nearly double the chips of Chen and nearly triple the stack of Morath. Chen would be the one to take the big steps during three handed play, bleeding chips from Morath’s stack before eliminating him in third place. By the time heads up play arrived, Kitai was only two million chips ahead of Chen.
After a surprising break for dinner, Kitai and Chen returned to continue the battle. During their break, the players decided to chop the tournament on chip counts, with Chen earning €613,000 and Kitai taking €632,000. The players left €80,000 on the table for the eventual champion of the tournament before the resumption of festivities.
Fifteen minutes after making the deal, Chen was able to grind some chips out of Kitai and actually move into a lead of his own. Chen continued to take chips off Kitai, extending his lead out to a shocking 12 million before even a half-hour of heads up play was completed. Kitai fought back over the next half hour, however, to end the first hour of play “only” three million chips back of Chen.
The duo would continue swapping the chip lead as their battle worked to the two hour mark. Kitai was able to make some excellent reads (in particular calling a Chen all in when he had rivered a pair of fives, which were good) and eventually take the lead back. Although he fought admirably, Chen never seemed to recover from that pair of fives by Kitai, his chip stack slipping away from him over the final half hour of the heads up match.
On the final hand, Kitai moved all in with K-7 and Chen got his remaining chips in good with a strong A-Q. That lead was short lived, though, as Kitai hit his hand on the K-6-6 flop. Once an Ace failed to come on the turn or river, Chen was out in second and Davidi Kitai was the champion of the EPT Berlin.
1. Davidi Kitai (Belgium), 712,000*
2. Andrew Chen (Canada), 613,000*
3. Andre Morath (Germany), 290,000
4. Mario Puccini (Germany), 220,000
5. Bahadir Kilickeser (Germany), 172,000
6. Cesar Garcia (Spain), 133,000
7. Marc Wright (United Kingdom), 97,000
8. Pratyush Buddiga (United States), 72,000
* – reflects final table deal
With his championship on the EPT stage in Berlin, there will be some debate as to whether Kitai has achieved one of poker’s mythical landmarks. A 2008 World Series of Poker bracelet winner, Kitai also has won on the World Poker Tour, but it was in the 2011 WPT Invitational, which isn’t considered an “open” event. If the WPT victory is taken into account, Kitai has captured poker’s “Triple Crown,” becoming only the fifth man to achieve that feat (joining Gavin Griffin, Roland de Wolfe, Jake Cody and Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier).
The completion of the EPT Berlin sends the denizens of the European circuit off to the EPT Grand Final, which begins on Wednesday in Monte Carlo.
