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EPT San Remo 2011 Final

The Main Event of the EPT San Remo 2011 came to its close on Thursday. Last eight players from eight different countries once again returned to the felt in hopes to win the trophy and the €800,000 top prize. It took longer than it was expected for the champion to emerge but at the end the title and the glory went to Russian Player Andrey Pateychuk.

At the start of the day at 14:00 CET there was still a chance for Kevin MacPhee to celebrate his second victory in the European Poker Tour series. He won the main event in Berlin in 2010. As he began in the final with the shortest stack, his hope were slipping away as fast as his chips.

First MacPhee was not able to play in any of the first 34 pots, bleeding his precious chips away. Finally in hand 35 being in the small blind and in “any two will do” situation he pushed all in with 5h, 6c. Barny Boatman called from the big blind with Qs, 7s. The board of 3h, 3c, Kh, 2c, Jh refused to help the former champion and he headed to the cashier to collect his eighth place prize.

Italian Rocco Palumbo fell the next victim of the day. At the time of his elimination he as well was running out of chips and left with little choice of action when he shoved with Kc, Qs against Jan Bendik with pocket fives. The flop awarded Bendik with a set, sending Palumbo to the rail.

Daniel Nielson began the day in the chip lead and was running the field with nearly half of the chips at his disposal. But things began to change as Dimitar Danchev challenged Nielson’s leadership. Danchev first eliminated Yorane Kerignard from France in the sixth place when Kerignard’s pocket threes could not stand up to Danchev’s Ad, Jd and two more aces on the flop. This hand brought Danchev up to contest the chip leader.

First however it was Pateychuk who truck a big blow to Neilson’s stack. In this hand Neilson five-bet with Ah, 9d against Russian’s As, Kc. The board missed both players and Neilson plummeted down to just 3 million chips.

From that moment on Pateychuk took off and there was no stop to him. First he busted out Bendik in the fifth place after his Kc, 10c ran across Pateychuk’s pocket jacks. Boatman from the UK was the next to go. He had a disappointing day watching his stack diminishing until he had to play pocket threes to see his opponent’s pocket queens and the board of Ah, Qs, 6c, Jh, Jc for Pateychuk’s full house.

For a while Pateychuk and Danchev battled in the three-handed game trying to take the stack off Neilson which was growing shorter and shorter with each hand. At the end Neilson was committed to push with As, 5d and got knocked out with Danchev’s Ad, 9s.

Finally the duel began with both contestants very close in chips. To began they decided to take the €1.2 million prize money and split it to play for the title and the remaining €80,000 instead. Although Payeychuk was winning most pot it was the Bulgarian winning the big and important ones and for a while he began to look like a favorite clinching the chip lead for some time. At one hand he was just one card away from the victory but lady luck was not behind his shoulder in San Remo.

In this hand, with the chip counts nearly even, the rail could feel a big pot coming up. Pateychuk three-bet before flop and got called. The flop brought 9s, 4s, 2h, Pateychuk bet, Danchev raised and Pateychuk pushed all in with 6s, 7c. Danchev immediately called and showed 10s, 9c. 8h, came on the turn and then 5h on the river came like a kiss of death. Both players just stared at the board finding hard to comprehend what just happened in front of their eyes. It only took three small hands to finish the game.

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