Taking time away from his punishment of the online tournament world, PokerStars online qualifier Michael “mae9690” Eiler vanquished an accomplished final table that included Team PokerStars Pro Daniel Negreanu to capture his first major championship at the European Poker Tour (EPT) stop in Vienna, Austria on Sunday.
The six-day tournament began last Tuesday with a massive field. EPT Vienna had been capped at 600 players and that number was nearly met by the 587 runners who came to the line for the start of the event. With a buy-in of €5,000, a prize pool of over €2.9 million was built, of which 80 players would take a piece.
From the start of the tournament, Negreanu was at or near the front of the field. After breaking through at EPT London in early October for his first ever EPT cash, Negreanu was looking to complete the mythical poker “Triple Crown” of a championship in each of the major tournament circuits (the EPT, the World Poker Tour, and the World Series of Poker). Coming to the final table, Negreanu looked poised to achieve that goal, which has only been accomplished by two other men, Roland de Wolfe and Gavin Griffin.
When the final table started on Sunday afternoon, Negreanu had amassed over five million chips to assume the chip lead at the table. “Kid Poker’s” closest competitor, PokerStars qualifier Konstantinos “arxigos” Nanos, was over 1.5 million chips behind and other top players such as Eiler (2.1 million) and the Czech Republic’s Martin Hruby were ready to tackle Negreanu should he falter. At the eight-handed final table were two Team PokerStars sponsored pros (Negreanu and Hruby), three PokerStars qualifiers (Eiler, Nanos, and Matthias Lotze), and three others: Italy’s Luca Cainelli, Germany’s Andreas Wiese, and France’s Bruno Launais.
Eiler went on the offensive from the start, taking down the first four hands. On the fifth hand, the short stack of Launais was placed at risk when, on an 8-2-J board, he moved all-in after a bet from Cainelli. Cainelli calmly made the call and tabled his slow-played pocket aces, crushing Launais’ flopped top pair/top kicker. The turn and river brought no salvation for the Frenchman and Launais was bounced in eighth place.
Over the next two hours, Nanos was able to move into the lead after Negreanu, holding pocket tens, doubled up Wiese’s pocket queens. The final table ambled along for nearly two hours before Cainelli, holding pocket jacks, eliminated Lotze’s pocket tens in seventh place.
After Eiler eliminated his fellow countryman Wiese in sixth place, a hand occurred that would affect the entire fabric of the tournament. From the hijack seat, Cainelli popped the betting up to 290,000 and was called by both Negreanu and Hruby. The trio saw an 8-5-K flop, where Cainelli’s continuation bet of 725,000 was answered by both of his opponents. The turn card opened the floodgates and would lead to the elimination of another player.
After a nine came on the turn, Cainelli immediately pushed the remainder of his stack into the center of the felt, only to see Negreanu snap-call and Hruby, seemingly amazed, make the call himself. Cainelli’s pocket rockets were drawing dead, vastly outpaced by his opponents; Negreanu (K-9) had made kings-up on the turn, while Hruby (7-6) had nailed a straight. A blank fell on the river, eliminating Cainelli in fifth place, crippling Negreanu, and moving Hruby into a sizeable chip lead.
Negreanu couldn’t recover from the massive loss of chips and was the next player out. Hruby and Eiler were able to control the three-way action after the dinner break as Nanos departed the final table in third place at the hands of Hruby. Down to heads-up action, Hruby looked poised to take the EPT Vienna title with a nearly 2.5:1 chip lead over Eiler.
Eiler chipped away gradually at the lead of Hruby over the first half-hour of heads-up play, closing the gap between the duo to only two million chips. The German was able to keep the pressure on the Czech pro, eventually switching the tables and opening up his own 2:1 chip lead. On the final hand, Hruby staked his tournament life on pocket deuces, while Eiler looked to a suited A-10 of diamonds to end the event. The flop came all diamonds, leaving Hruby looking for running cards to make a boat. After the turn failed to pair the board, the tournament was over and Eiler took down the title.
1st: Michael Eiler (Germany) – €700,000
2nd: Martin Hruby (Czech Republic) – €470,000
3rd: Konstantinos Nanos (Greece) – €265,000
4th: Daniel Negreanu (Canada) – €175,000
5th: Luca Cainelli (Italy) – €140,000
6th: Andreas Wiese (Germany) – €105,000
7th: Matthias Lotze (Germany) – €76,000
8th: Bruno Launais (France) – €60,000
With the completion of the festivities in Vienna, the EPT moves on to Barcelona, Spain from November 22nd to 27th and then to Prague, Czech Republic from December 13th to 18th. These will be the final tournaments for the EPT in 2010, with the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure resuming the seventh season of the EPT come January 2011.