Chance Kornuth: Continues a spectacular run

There are a few how one can end a poker tournament, over and above the standard approach of 1 player winning all of the chips. Late this evening on the PokerStars and Monte-Carlo®Casino EPT Grand Final, the €10,000 single re-entry high roller found a kind of alternative ways.

With three players left--Chance Kornuth, Philipp Gruissem and Sergey Lebedev--they decided to have a look at the numbers and broker a deal. We do not know specifically how the conversation went, but if they emerged from the conclave, that they had a perfect idea: Let's just end it now, split the prize money in keeping with Independent Chip Model (ICM) calculations and hand the trophy to Kornuth, who had about twice the selection of chips as either of the opposite two.

It wasn't all that dramatic, lacking the cuff-chewing anticipation of a slowly peeled flop, turn and river. Nevertheless it was certainly quick. Kornuth is the official champion, taking €351,108 and the primary big trophy of this EPT Grand Final festival.

"This is great," Kornuth, who beat a field of 164 players to the title, said. "I got my first a type of beautiful trophies, so I'm pretty excited. It's only a dream year."

Kornuth have been on a remarkable run of late, winning a high roller event in Australia, finishing runner up in Dublin, and before that reaching the general table of the high roller on the PCA a year after finishing third ordinarily event. This pay-check nestles in amongst those and makes him one of the most standout performers in world poker in 2016. There have been also 50 re-entries, swelling the prize pool some more.

Kornuth added: "Almost each stop have been somewhat like this and poker doesn't get any better when times are like how they're now. It's pretty spectacular."

Chance Kornuth celebrates together with his wife, Emily

To get to the title, Kornuth needed to beat a stacked field, including every other players in red-hot form. Gruissem, the official runner up taking €292,750, is a beast in events with this type of buy-in; Anthony Zinno also made the overall table, translating his sensational U.S.-based form to Monaco; and Fedor Holz, who finished fourth, can not seem to put a foot wrong.

Actually, in the case of Holz, he did finally end up having to serve a one-round penalty on this one after Gruissem flopped a flush to raised his pocket pair of kings. But it surely didn't actually hurt Holz a great deal in any respect. He ended up doubling up in that hand--the true touch of a poker Midas. Have a look at the 5:20pm update within the live coverage post to look how that one went down.

Philipp Gruissem and Fedor Holz, in quiet times

Holz thought he was out and showed his displeasure

But back to the start of this present day: They resumed this afternoon with 23 players still involved, which represented some distance to head by anyone's standards. But with with regards to half one million euros up for grabs, it made sense to settle in for the long haul.

The pace of eliminations fluctuated wildly within the early passage of play: Ozgur Arda, Diego Ventura, Dan Shak, Ognyan Dimov, Alexandru Papazian and Alexandre Rivero were out before anybody could even blink. But there then came a protracted slowdown before Adrian Mateos and Imad Derwiche went out simultaneously to chop the sphere to its final two tables.

The quality of the rest field was still exceptionally high, but Jean-Noel Thorel, Isaac Haxton and Sam Panzica, who won a €10,000 high roller in Dublin earlier this year, were sacrificed in a bid to get to the last nine.

Jean-Noel Thorel: Dream another day

Then Tom Hall couldn't beat Kornuth and saw his tournament go up in smoke, which took them to the last table. But only after Christian Christner perished at Kornuth's hands did we reach a last table at which only eight chairs are ever positioned.

Got that? Well, here is what happened within the actual final.

Dmitry Yurasov was last night's leader, but he found the going tough with Mateos sitting on his left for far of the early stages. However after the reigning Grand Final champion was sent packing by Pavel Plesuv, Yurasev got most of his chips back...only to lose them to Holz shortly after final-table play began.

Yurasov flopped top pair along with his K♠Q♠, and watched it improve to trips with the Q♥ turn and a flush with the 5♠ river. But if the last of the chips went in, Yurasov was in trouble. Holz had A♠J♠ for the larger flush. Yurasov took €54,180 for eighth.

Felipe Ramos was the following to leave. He have been grinding a below average stack for many of the past two days, but always looked as if it would get it in on the right time to secure a double up when things got desperate.

Andre Akkari drops by to test on fellow Brazilian Felipe Ramos

Eventually, however, he lost a 60-40 to Gruissem, followed by losing a flip for the rest of his stack to the similar player and needed to accept seventh. "I'VE no complaints," he said. "2016 have been great for me." He took €74,100.

The final six headed to dinner, with Holz and Kornuth ahead. At that point, two of the tournament's biggest names--Gruissem and Zinno--were the shortest stacks, but they experienced divergent fortunes within the postprandial action.

Gruissem went on an upward charge, taking significant pots from Murad Akhundov (himself a former chip-leader) after which Holz. But Zinno didn't get anything going and was next to perish when his A♣T♥ couldn't beat Sergey Lebedev's pocket sixes.

Zinno was on a fantastic run, just about ever since he burst directly to the scene with a flurry of large scores at the WPT. He's been an ordinary in Europe for the past year and this €101,500 represents his biggest cash in this side of the Atlantic.

Anthony Zinno seals six figures in Europe for the primary time

Akhundov was likely happy to peer Zinno bust, mainly because he had a micro-stack himself. He got it in at the very next hand, with Q♥4♥, but was knocked out by Kornuth's T♣8♣ when Kornuth rivered a straight.

That left them with four, and the small matter of Holz. The person referred to as CrownUpGuy is rapidly becoming the player almost everyone names once they discuss the most efficient of the brand new crop in world poker. When you think about one of the competition, you realise what an accolade that is.

The former WCOOP Main Event champion has already racked up greater than $7.6 million in live cashes to check his online talent and was again irresistible on this tournament. It's why the incident with Gruissem, which cost him a round of action, seemed so out of character.

But he got himself together again and built up a stack to challenge, before he bumped into Kornuth. On an extremely fascinating hand -- take a look at the 10pm update -- Holz called all-in on a double paired board with a queen. But Kornuth, within the big blind, had made an entire house and Holz was sent home in fourth.

Kornuth consoles Fedor Holz after knocking him out

This tournament may need gone on rather a lot longer. Kornuth had 5,625,000, Gruissem had 2,830,000 and Lebedev 2,605,000, with blinds at 30,000-60,000, after they checked out the numbers. Or even though Lebedev may be not besides referred to as the opposite two, it is a measure of ways highly they regard him that Gruissem nor Kornuth desired to play on.

Sergey Lebedev: Third for just about €300,000

Lebedev officially took €291,162 for his third place after that remarkably swift solution to finish things three handed. "Everyone that I USED TO BE up against on the end was just incredibly good," Kornuth said. "Just fantastic people generally and fantastic card players. It was really fun."

That was a superb option to kick off this festival. And with Day 2 of the super high roller getting under way tomorrow, perhaps with all of Kornuth, Gruissem, Holz and Zinno involved, things are just just warming up.

EPT Grand Final single re-entry high rollerDates: April 26-28, 2016Buy in: €10,300Players: 214 (164 unique players plus 50 re-entries)Prize pool: €2,075,800

1 - Chance Kornuth (U.S.A.) €351,1082 - Philip Gruissem (Germany) €299,1623 - Sergey Lebedev (Russia) €292,7504 - Fedor Holz (Germany) €169,0005 - Murad Akhundov (Azerbaijan) €133,6806 - Anthony Zinno (UNITED STATES OF AMERICA) €101,5007 - Filipe Ramos (Brazil) €74,1008 - Dmitry Yurasov (Russia) €54,180

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Read More... [Source: PokerStarsBlog.com]