Event #4 at the World Series of Poker Europe, the €3250 No Limit Hold’em Shootout, has reached its conclusion – albeit a day late – with France taking down its second bracelet of this year’s schedule with the victory by amateur player Giovanni Rosadoni over the formidable Dan O’Brien.
The second day of the tournament was yesterday, with two tables from the original 141 players looking to work their way down to the eventual champion. As it was a shootout, the players were virtually equal in chips, but there were some strong contenders on the two ten-handed tables that were left. On one table, Matt Stout, Faraz Jaka, Mohsin Charania, John Duthie and Oleksii Kovalchuk squared off, while Philippe Boucher, Dominik Nitsche, Daniel Negreanu, Chance Kornuth, Phil Hellmuth, John Monnette and O’Brien took up seats on the second.
Early action would see Jaka take down Michael Ferrell in 19th place as Hellmuth stumbled in his efforts towards his unprecedented thirteenth WSOP bracelet. Per his usual persona, Hellmuth was bombastic in a hand against Roman Romanovskyi when, with the board reading K-4-3-2-9, Hellmuth made a call to see Romanovskyi table K-9 for Kings up. After firing his chips to the muck, Hellmuth went on a tirade that entertained everyone in the vicinity of Cannes. “I fly all the way here for some monkey to try and give me all his chips,” Hellmuth fumed. “What is this?”
As Hellmuth continued to steam, Stout would be eliminated by Kovalchuk and Jaka would depart at the hands of Duthie. After giving Hellmuth some much needed chips, Negreanu would also be dumped from the tournament by Kovalchuk to put the two time WSOP bracelet winner into the chip lead. Monnette would continue to make his run at the WSOP Player of the Year Award by eliminating Kornuth in fourteenth place and, as the sun set on the French coast, Kovalchuk held the chip lead.
The “Romanovskyi and Hellmuth” sideshow continued into the night in Cannes as, on another hand with the board reading 9-4-4-2-8, Hellmuth would quickly call a river bet from Romanovskyi. After his nemesis tabled a J-9 for a flopped two pair, Hellmuth went off again. This time, though, Romanovskyi fired back after a Hellmuth barrage by stating, “Nice snap call,” and this further set Hellmuth off. “You wanna make fun of me? This f****** player is the worst ever!”
After Charania was eliminated in thirteenth place, the curtain would fall on the long-running battle between Romanovskyi and Hellmuth. On an extremely short stack, Hellmuth pushed all in to find Romanovskyi waiting for him with a call. Behind with a K-10 versus Romanovskyi’s A-5, the board would come Jack high to knock out Hellmuth in 12th place, leaving the 1989 World Champion to exclaim, “I play like a 12-time world champ and I’m out,” as he exited the arena.
O’Brien would eliminate Boucher in eleventh to take over the lead and set the final table for the event. Joining him were Monnette, Duthie, Kovalchuk, Romanovskyi and Rosadoni, with O’Brien and Monnette drawing first blood in eliminating Valentin Messina and Duthie in tenth and ninth, respectively. Rosadoni made a run up the ladder in winning two big hands, but O’Brien would maintain the lead in eliminating Trond Aanensen in eighth place.
As the action continued late into the evening, Romanovskyi, Paul Guichard, Adrien Allain, Kovalchuk and Monnette would depart (in seventh through third places) and O’Brien would hold a slim 275K chip lead over Rosadoni going to heads up play. Over the next two hours, Rosadoni would reverse those stacks before the tournament had to be called due to the closure of the casino at 5AM this morning (Cannes time). It wouldn’t be until this afternoon that the duo would conclude the tournament.
Rosadoni would keep his foot on the gas once the duo returned today. Within minutes of the cards hitting the air, he had expanded his lead to nearly 5:1. O’Brien was able to get back to almost even stacks at one point in the three hour fight and, at one point, had Rosadoni on the ropes, but he couldn’t finish off his worthy opponent. On the final hand, O’Brien pushed with a K-J only to run into the pocket Queens of Rosadoni; although the flop brought a Jack, there was no additional help for O’Brien and Rosadoni was crowned the victor.
1. Giovanni Rosadoni, €107,614
2. Dan O’Brien, €66,503
3. John Monnette, €48,177
4. Oleksii Kovalchuk, €35,560
5. Adrien Allain, €26,724
6. Paul Guichard, €20,434
7. Roman Romanovskyi, €15,890
8. Trond Aanensen, €12,564
9. John Duthie, €10,095
10. Valentin Messina, €8239
With the victory, Rosadoni seized the second bracelet for France at the 2012 WSOP-E (Roger Hairabedian won Event #3 earlier this week). Of more interest, perhaps, was Monnette’s run in the event; his third place finish should put him ahead of Event #2 winner Antonio Esfandiari in the race for the WSOP POY with a few events left on the schedule in France and Greg Merson’s finish in the WSOP Championship Event’s “Octo-Nine” to be the final determinants.
Two events are in action today, the €10,450 “Mixed Max” and the €1650 Six Handed Pot Limit Omaha tournaments, leading up to the start of the WSOP-E Championship Event this Saturday.
