In a shockingly rapid fashion, Daniel-Gai Pidun defeated the start of day chip leader, Robert Haigh, to earn the championship of the European Poker Tour stop in Berlin, Germany, early Sunday morning (U. S. time).
At the start of action on Saturday, Haigh and Pidun were the only two players over the five million mark, with Haigh holding 245K more than his fellow German. Back in the pack, four players – Lasse Frost, Alexander Helbig, Roman Herold and Roman Korenev – were bunched together with about 700K in chips separating them, while Pascal Vos and Julian Thomas came to the table as the short stacks. With the top prize of €880,000 on the line for the eventual champion, you might have thought they would take some time to start mixing things up.
If you thought that, you would be wrong. On the very first hand of play, Thomas moved all in over a Pidun opening bet, which Pidun felt warranted a fold. Pidun would be undaunted, taking the next two hands (one by a walk, the other with a three bet against Korenev) before Thomas would fire again with an all-in move that worked. After Vos doubled up through Korenev (his pocket Jacks holding up against A-Q after a Q-10-J-8-7 board), the action was barely ten minutes old but three all ins had occurred.
This type of early aggression would continue as the short stacks would look to earn a key double up or, at the minimum, scoop up the blinds and antes. After his double up of Vos, Korenev was looking to reestablish himself in a battle against Helbig. At the start, Korenev’s pocket Jacks looked good against Helbig’s pocket fours. Two spades would come on the 2-3-A flop, opening up a few more outs for Helbig to the Wheel. When the Q♠ hit on the turn, those outs got only greater for Helbig as, holding the 4♠, he now also had a backdoor flush draw. That came home on the K♠ river, stunningly eliminating Korenev in eighth place.
After Korenev’s departure, Pidun went on a run of cards that saw his stack rocket through the roof. Over a span of an hour of play, Pidun would whoosh past Haigh to sit on a stack of over nine million chips. Haigh was treading water at this point, while the remainder of the field was struggling to keep up with the two contenders. Once Thomas was eliminated in a three way all in with Haigh and Herold, Pidun had extended his lead to almost four million chips.
Haigh and Pidun, instead of letting the shorter stacks battle it out, decided they wanted to duke it out themselves. In a span of two hands, Haigh was able to creep back to almost even with Pidun, as the remaining four players struggled to pass the three million mark in chips. This would be something that the duo would do frequently, with Pidun coming out on the better end of the situation on most occasions, as Pidun saw his lead eventually increase to 11 million as Haigh’s chips slipped through his fingers.
The shorter stacks never had a chance against the top two’s assault. Herold would fall in sixth place at the hands of Helbig, who immediately turned around and pushed those chips to Pidun in leaving in fifth. Pidun kept on pounding, dumping Vos from the tournament in fourth, while Haigh earned some chips to go to the heads up fight by eliminating Frost in third place.
To call it a “heads up fight” might not be accurate, however. As the twosome came to the table for action, Pidun held a massive chip lead (24.325 million to 2.91 million) over Haigh and he never let his foot off the gas. On the final hand, Pidun pushed all-in from the button and Haigh immediately made the call, turning up his leading Big Slick against Pidun’s paltry 9-8. It was good enough as an eight appeared in the window; once the turn and river blanked for Haigh, Daniel-Gai Pidun had earned the championship at the EPT Berlin.
1. Daniel-Gai Pidun, 880,000
2. Robert Haigh, 531,000
3. Lasse Frost, 325,000
4. Pascal Vos, 255,000
5. Alexander Helbig, 202,000
6. Roman Herold, 155,000
7. Julian Thomas, 110,000
8. Roman Korenev, 77,000
With the EPT Berlin in the books, the best in the European poker world will set their sights on Monte Carlo for the Season Nine finale for the EPT. The EPT Grand Final will be contested in Monaco from May 6-15 and it is expected that there will be a huge field in attendance for what is essentially the EPT’s Grand Championship. For now, however, Daniel-Gai Pidun can revel in being the latest champion on the premiere poker circuit in Europe!
