One of the main tournaments of the series attracted 174 entries for $5,300.
The 4-day marathon ended with the triumph of Sergei Varnaev.
But it might not have happened, because yesterday during the bubble, when there were 24 players left in the game with 23 ITMs, Varnaev was all-in with A-K against 8-8. Luckily for Sergei, the dealer laid down a king.
The official results:
1. Sergei Varnaev — 200.000
2. Lyudmil Anatoliev Ivanov — 134.000
3. Maxime Chilaud — 89.900
4. Maher Ali Achour — 65.000
5. Bogdan Jontulovic — 50.000
6. Mehmet Serkan Demirkol — 39.000
7. Ludovic Paul Jacques Uzan — 30.000
8. Sachin Kamal Joshi — 23.000
9. Xin Tang — 18.000
10. Hala Karam — 14.000
11. Dmitry Gromov — 14.000
12. Aliaksandr Hirs — 14.000
13. Ozgur Arda — 11.500
14. Gaspare Sposato — 11.500
15. Paul Adrian Runcan — 11.500
16. Mustafa Biz — 10.000
17. Suat Egilli — 10.000
18. Roman Stoika — 10.000
19. Ramazan Akyel — 9.000
20. Nemo T. O. A. Israel — 9.000
21. Mircea Alexandru Flutur — 9.000
22. Ihar Soika — 9.000
23. Edward Reilly Quinn — 9.000
By tradition, we asked Varnaev to share his first impressions:
— This is my second time here. The first one was at EPT Cyprus. By the way, I didn’t leave empty-handed then either. I won the hyperturbo tournament.
— I like everything very much – staff, dealers, food. Unfortunately not to swim yet. I swam in the fall. Because of that I flew without my wife.
— Now I’ll have to come again. I’ll be able to swim at the next series, won’t I?
— I’ve been playing professionally online for 7 years. And the last series on Merit was my first offline experience.
— My bestcash before that was 500 less. I won 199,500 in the Venom tournament. So I’ve upgraded my bestcash to 200,000!
— As for the final table – there weren’t any fateful hands. A couple of times there were big bluffs. And the dealer laid everything in my favor – both when he was betting higher and lower.
— I believed that I could win only on the river of the last hand. I have a lot of experience online and I know that if the opponent still has outs, you can’t be happy.
— There was no talk of sharing. But if Lyudmil Ivanov had suggested it, I probably would have agreed. He plays very well. But it was over very quickly. 1 hand and a win.