On a Friday night pause before the 2015 World Series of Poker Europe’s Championship Event winner will be determined, the final table of the €25,000 High Roller event played out. At the end of the festivities, former World Champion Jonathan Duhamel emerged as the champion of the event.
The final table from the 64 player field expectedly contained some of the biggest names in the game. Mustapha Kanit was atop the leaderboard at the start of play with his 1.726 million in chips, while Christoph Vogelsang (820K) was the closest competitor. Samuel Chartier (712K), Fedor Holz (587K), Duhamel (542K) and poker “Triple Crown” winner Davidi Kitai (415K) rounded out what would prove to be an entertaining evening of poker.
While Kanit stayed out of the fray, the remaining five men scrambled for position. In what would prove to be a dramatic hand, Kitai limped from the button and, after Holz had moved all in, immediately made the call with his pocket Kings. Holz was in a difficult spot with his pocket fives and, following an A-K-J flop, was in even more dire straits. A Queen on the turn didn’t shut out Holz, leaving him options for a chop with a ten on the river. Like a savior from on high, that ten came on the river, irritating Kitai after having a hammerlock on the hand and saving Holz by splitting the pot.
Holz would not last much longer, however. His stack fluctuated wildly during the final table play to the point where he moved all-in with a 10-9 and only 175K in chips to fight with. If the stack had been bigger, perhaps Duhamel doesn’t make the call with only an A-7 off suit but, once he did, the duo was off to the races. A J-7-2 flop hit both men, Duhamel improving to a pair and Holz to a gut shot straight draw, but that would be the extent of the excitement. Another seven on the turn and a five on the river kept Duhamel in the lead and sent Holz to the rail in sixth place.
Duhamel continued to slowly chip up, but it was Kanit who was the Alpha at the table. He would eliminate Vogelsang in fifth place after turning a gut shot straight draw into a full-fledged straight to crack the two million chip mark. The other three players, however, weren’t ready to let Kanit get too far out in front as Chartier earned a key double up to bring him back to the pack. After Kanit rebuilt some of his stack, he would then double up Kitai.
At this point, the quartet of players were virtually neck and neck with each other as all the stacks were between a million and 1.25 million chips. Kanit would reestablish his dominance in taking down Chartier in fourth, but Kanit would then turn around and give a huge portion of that stack to Kitai in doubling him up. Duhamel would end the day soon after that, sending Kanit home in third place after starting the day as the dominant chip leader.
Duhamel and Kitai were within 250K in chips of each other at the start of the heads up battle, but it would not be a fight that would last long. On the seventh hand of heads up action, Duhamel forced Kitai to fold on an A♥ 3♥ 2♦ 9♥ 5♠ board to drive Kitai under a million chips, only to see Kitai double up on the very next hand. Fifteen minutes later, the tournament was over.
Kitai moved all in from the button and Duhamel peeled his hole cards, looked and called. His pocket sevens were ahead of Kitai’s J-7 off suit steal attempt, but there was plenty of danger out there for Duhamel to dodge. A monochrome A♠ K♠ 2♠ flop gave Kitai more outs as he had the only spade, but the turn 8♥ helped neither player. The case seven would fall on the river, improving Kitai to a pair of sevens that weren’t good enough to defeat Duhamel’s set of sevens and earning the title for Duhamel.
1. Jonathan Duhamel, €554,395
2. Davidi Kitai, €342,620
3. Mustapha Kanit, €227,145
4. Samuel Chartier, €160,775
5. Christoph Vogelsang, €121,020
6. Fedor Holz, €96,625
7. Timothy Adams, €81,420
In winning the High Roller, Duhamel almost was able to capture another prestigious WSOP title. By earning 2174.64 points, Duhamel was in prime position to win the WSOP Player of the Year award. Alas, $50,000 Poker Players’ Champion Mike Gorodinsky’s performance in Las Vegas this summer, where he earned 2251.81 points, was good enough to hold Duhamel at bay. With only the 2015 “November Nine” left to play, Duhamel will have to be satisfied with the runner-up slot on the board. That will probably be easy for Duhamel to do after picking up his third WSOP bracelet, arguably the best performance post-World Championship of any WSOP Championship Event winner since Chris Ferguson in 2000.
