Lubos Laska Wins 2022 WSOP Europe Colossus Event

Lubos Laska had a significant chip lead entering the final day of the World Series of Poker Europe €550 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em Colossus event and though it was not a smooth ride on Monday, he arrived at his destination safely, winning the tournament and €170,568.

This was the first WSOP gold bracelet of Laska’s poker career. In fact, according to TheHendonMob.com poker tournament database, he barely had any cashes at all before this. Going into the 2022 WSOP Europe, Laska appears to have had just four cashes totaling only $3,113. More than two-thirds of that came from a 33rd place finish at the WSOP Circuit Rozvadov stop, the same place at which the WSOP Europe is held.

Laska entered Monday with 11.125 million chips, well ahead of his closest competitor, Florin Bilan, who had 7.23 million. The 15 remaining players were all guaranteed at least €8,597, but Laska certainly had his eyes on the big prize with that chip stack.

He grew his chip count early, but soon thereafter began to ride the rollercoaster. He doubled-up one of the short stacks, De Han Kim, to fall to 9.5 million and then eliminated Saverio Rizzello in 14th place to get his stack back over 14 million.

Laska then doubled-up Demetrio Caminita to fall back to 8 million, lost another smaller pot to him, and then lost a big pot to Kim to drop to 5.6 million. A hand against Victor Arnautu took him down below 5 million, but he grabbed some back later when he knocked out Luca Marchetti in 12th place.

His big move to get back into it came when he got Caminita to fold on the river after betting every street, a huge hand that took Laska up to 9.2 million. From there, he climbed, hitting the 13 million-chip mark after eliminating Arnautu in 11th place.

Despite that, it soon looked like Nino Pansier Junior was going to run away with things, but Laska found another gear, eventually knocking out Bilan in 5th place, Caminita in 4th place, and Kim in in 3rd place to go into heads-up play against Pansier with a 48.875 million to 28.525 million chip lead.

As often happens, the lead changed hands during heads-up and Pansier actually built a 2-to-1 lead at one point. Laska doubled through, though, flipping the table, and though Pansier made one last push, he was never able to get over the top.

On the final hand, all the chips went into the middle after the T-9-Q all-club flop, Laska with Q-7, Pansier with T-8 (neither man had clubs). Pansier was unable to hit his straight or another card to match his hole cards and it was over. Lubos Laska had his first WSOP bracelet.