In what was one of the quieter events on a hectic Saturday at the 2012 World Series of Poker Europe, Portugal’s Francisco Da Costa Santos emerged as the champion of Event #6, the €1650 Six Handed Pot Limit Omaha tournament, over Spain’s Ana Marquez early Sunday morning in Cannes, France.
Five players remained as play opened up yesterday with Andrew Lichtenberger holding a slim lead over Da Costa Santos. Aku Joentausta held down third place, with Marquez and an extremely short stacked Petteri Kalenius taking the other slots on the table. The sixth place finisher for the event, Nikolay Volper, had been eliminated on Friday by Lichtenberger prior to the postponement of the remainder of the final table, setting up yesterday’s action.
Although on the short stack, Kalenius refused to go quietly. He would double up twice within the first few minutes of the final table as the players settled in for a long grind. It would take almost four hours for the first player to be eliminated from the tournament and, when it occurred, it surprised many of the fans along the rail as to who it was.
After taking a big hit to his stack against Da Costa Santos to give him the lead, Lichtenberger continued to bleed chips to his opponents. He would drop down to only 75K in chips, which he pushed into battle against Joentausta holding Q-J-9-6. Joentausta was leading pre-flop with his A-K-7-6 and the flop only extended his advantage when it came down A-5-3. A King on the turn opened up the possibility of a Broadway straight for Lichtenberger, but a six on the river dashed those hopes and eliminated the start-of-day chip leader from the tournament in fifth place.
Joentausta would take over the chip lead with Lichtenberger’s elimination but it would be short lived. He decided to knock heads with Da Costa Santos and, after a potting battle, Da Costa Santos would have the best of it pre-flop with his A-A-9-4 (double suited) and his chips all-in against Joentausta’s A-K-J-10. The baby flop of 2-9-3 kept Da Costa Santos in the lead and, once the turn paired with another three and the river came with an innocuous eight, Da Costa Santos rocketed into the lead.
Marquez would then emerge as a challenger to Da Costa Santos as she eliminated a game Kalenius in fourth place to move up to 260K in chips (slightly less than half what Da Costa Santos held). After Da Costa Santos extended his lead in eliminating Joentausta in third place, the final two oddly decided to take a dinner break before coming back to determine the champion.
At the start of heads up play, Da Costa Santos (742K) held a dominant lead over Marquez (187K) and quickly put an end to the festivities. On the final hand, Marquez committed her final chips with a double suited A-K-10-5, drawing a call from Da Costa Santos and his 10-9-7-6 rainbow arrangement. The flop nailed Da Costa Santos, coming down 8-5-7, and although the 2♦ on the turn opened up Marquez for a flush draw plus her over cards, she would miss them all with the 4♥ on the river.
1. Francisco Da Costa Santos, €83,275
2. Ana Marquez, €51,443
3. Aku Joentausta, €36,351
4. Petteri Kalenius, €25,831
5. Andrew Lichtenberger, €18,463
6. Nikolay Volper, €13,273*
* – eliminated Friday
Marquez was thisclose to making WSOP-E history. Since its inception in 2007, there have been 23 tournaments that have been contested (not counting this year’s events) and, in that time, there has only been one female WSOP-E bracelet winner, Annette Obrestad’s victory in the inaugural WSOP-E Championship Event. In fact, no woman has come as close to winning as Marquez did with her runner-up finish on Saturday.
With that said, it shouldn’t deflect from the fact that Da Costa Santos played an outstanding final table in taking down the championship. For his work, Da Costa Santos could also claim a bit of WSOP history himself in becoming the first ever champion hailing from Portugal to win a bracelet.
