Though the World Poker Tour (WPT) is an international tour, the events in the United States seem to get more attention than their ‘round-the-world brethren. Case in point: while Noah Schwartz drew the eyes of the tournament poker world last week in winning the 2012 WPT bestbet Jacksonville Fall Poker Scramble, WPT Copenhagen across the Atlantic was progressing largely under the radar. That tournament wrapped up over the weekend with Sweden’s Emil Olsson winning his first major title along with 1,200,000 DKK ($206,137 as of Saturday) and a $25,000 seat in the season-ending WPT Championship at the Bellagio.
Olsson had a 600,000 chip lead over Stanislav Barshak when final table play began, quite sizable considering the big blind was at just 16,000 chips. Nobody was out of it, though, as even the shortest stack, Morten Klein, had 35 big blinds with which to play. Here is what things looked like to start out on Saturday:
1. Emil Olsson – 2,208,000
2. Stanislav Barshak – 1,597,000
3. Robin Ylitalo – 934,000
4. Jan Djerberg – 824,000
5. Philip Jacobsen – 742,000
6. Morten Klein – 568,000
The first elimination occurred about an hour into play. Philip Jacobsen started the betting pre-flop only to see Jan Djerberg move all-in for 408,000 behind him. Jacobsen made the call, showing pocket Tens against Djerberg’s A-9. Neither player improved, but that was fine for Jacobsen, as he knocked out Djerberg in 6th place.
A bit more than an hour later, Barshak took out Robin Ylitalo in 5th place and again after a little more than another hour, Barshak himself was eliminated in 4th place when both he and Olsson flopped top pair, but Olsson had Barshak outkicked.
After Morten Klein sent Jacobsen home in 3rd place, he took a 3.78 million chip stack into heads-up play against Olsson, who held 3.09 million chips.
Klein increased his lead at the outset, but Olsson came back to take a 1 million chip lead. In the lead-changing hand, Klein raised pre-flop and Olsson called. Both men checked the flop of K♦-J♠-7♠ and on the turn 7♣, Klein called a 125,000 bet from Olsson. Olsson bet 325,000 when the 3♣ was dealt on the river and again, Klein called. Olsson revealed his hole cards of K♠-Q♣ and Klein mucked.
That got the ball rolling for Olsson and while Klein came close to even at one point, it was pretty much all Olsson from there. On the final hand, Klein moved all-in pre-flop with K♥-8♦ and was in deep, deep trouble when Olsson called with K♣-K♦. The all diamond flop would have given Klein some hope if it wasn’t for the fact that Olsson had a better diamond and the turn and river didn’t give Klein the miracle cards he needed to double-up. Emil Olsson became the latest member of the WPT Champions Club and was over $200,000 richer.
2012 WPT Copenhagen Main Event – Final Table Results
1. Emil Olsson – $229,938
2. Morten Klein – $145,164
3. Philip Jacobsen – $93,080
4. Stanislav Barshak – $68,316
5. Robin Ylitalo – $51,237
6. Jan Djerberg – $40,989
