In the Czech city of Rozvadov, the WSOPE is approaching its grand finale. The Main Event is already underway, the WSOP Player of the Year is going down to the wire and a 100K Diamond High Roller champion has emerged from a field of talented names.
€100,000 Diamond High Roller
This High Roller tournament has always been one of the most keenly anticipated events on the schedule, and few were surprised to see the roster of names filled with star names. The total field size went on to reach 72, with each player paying €100,000 (US$110,805) to enter. This generated a prize pool which topped €6,840,000 (US$7,579,062) by the time registration had closed.
The first day was action-packed, with 25 runners surviving. Negreanu and Deeb were among those to hit the rail, meaning that there would be no big changes to the Player of the Year race coming from this event. Registration closed during day 2, with Phil Ivey being one the players to register late and run up a stack. Unfortunately for the poker legend, he ran 
into towards the end of the day to lose most of his stack but was still able to limp on to the final table as the short stack.
One hand is all it took for the final table to find its first bust-out. The cards were dealt, Ivey shoved 
from the hijack, got called by 
and his day was done. Russia’s Anatoly Filatov had been a chip magnet throughout day 2 and began the final table with a big chiplead and continued to build as players started falling. Christoph Vogelsang following close behind by the time a few players had busted, and the final five consisted of Vogelsang, Filatov, Chin Wei Lim, Matthias Eibinger and Jean-Noel Thorel.
Eibinger and Vogelsang were the next to make way, with Thorel and Wei Lim gaining strong positions in the counts. Their continued rise eventually came at the expense of Filatov, who busted in 3rd when his shove with 
couldn’t hold up against Thorel’s call with 
. Thorel and Wei Lim then began the final fight with equal stacks, although it didn’t stay that way for long. Wei Lim caught two pair against top pair to grab the lead. Just a few hands later, Thorel ran a huge bluff with 
, check-raising all in on a board of 
. Wei Lim was there waiting with 
and in the blink of an eye, it was all over.
Chin Wei Lim’s first bracelet makes him the second Malaysian bracelet winner in history after Junzhung Loo, who won Malaysia’s first at WSOP Asia-Pacific in 2014.
The final payouts are as follows:
1st – Chin Wei Lim (Malaysia) – €2,172,104 (US$ 2,395,244)
2nd – Jean-Noel Thorel (France) – €1,342,459
3rd – Anatoly Filatov (Russian Federation) – €907,301
4th – Christoph Vogelsang (Germany) – €633,336
5th – Matthias Eibinger (Austria) – €457,107
6th – Ole Schemion (Germany) – €341,510
7th – Danny Tang (Hong Kong) – €264,440
8th – Phil Ivey (United States) – €212,504
Event 11 – €2,200 Pot-Limit Omaha – Winner: Tomas Ribeiro
The 11th event of a scheduled 15 saw players gather for a €2,200 (US$2,438) Pot-Limit Omaha tournament. The field size rose steadily until it reached 271, which created a total prize pool of €520,049 (US$576,240). Well over €100,000 was set aside for the champion.
The latter stages of this tournament saw a fascinating story develop as defending champion of this bracelet event; Hong Kong’s Anson Tsang was able to go deep once again, eventually making it to the final table. He came into the final table with a short stack and managed to improve to 6th place, which was still an admirable achievement, despite him missing out on the gold.
The chip leader coming into the final table was none other than Tobias Peters. An experienced tournament grinder, Peters began with a comfortable lead, but his final table did not go as smoothly as planned, and despite picking up some early small pots, he was soon overhauled by Germany’s Marc Palatzky. By the time Tsang had bowed out, Palatazky was running away with almost double the chips of his nearest challenger. Slowly but surely though, Ribeiro rose, quickly becoming Palatzky’s nemesis.
The elimination of Tobias Peters in 4th was followed by Palatzky’s gradual collapse, as the Portuguese built a commanding lead at the top. Soon after, Palatzky busted to bring the action heads-up, with Ribeiro starting with a 4.5 o 1 chip advantage. His opponent, Omar Eljach could do nothing to stop his march to the title, and despite mounting a small early fightback, had to accept a runner-up finish.
Here are the final payouts:
1st – Tomas Ribeiro (Portgual) – €128,314 (US$142,516)
2nd – Omar Eljach (Sweden) – €79,291
3rd – Marc Palatzky (Germany) – €54,787
4th – Tobias Peters (Netherlands) – €38,581
5th – Ilyaz Dosikov (Russia) – € 27,701
6th – Anson Tsang (Hong-Kong) – € 20,285
7th – Leonid Yanovski (Israel) – € 15,157
8th – Christopher Frank (Germany) – € 11,161
Negreanu inches ahead in Player of the Year race
One of the exciting facets of WSOPE which has continued to run through the festival is that of the WSOP Player of the Year race. What began in Las Vegas during the summer is now reaching a thrilling conclusion, with very little to separate the top three. Robert Campbell led by a small margin coming into WSOPE, with Shaun Deeb and Daniel Negreanu close behind. In Rozvadov, Deeb initially managed to overhaul Campbell, but with just a handful of events left, Negreanu has now grabbed the lead.
The €25,500 Mixed Games Championship proved the turning point, as the Canadian took 6th place to swing the pendulum back in his direction. Phil Hellmuth took 2nd place in the same event to rise up to 8th in the standings, but barring something miraculous in the final events, our 2019 WSOP Player of the Year should be one of the top 3 players as things stand.
Here is the current leaderboard:
1st – Daniel Negreanu – 3,971.54
2nd – Robert Campbell – 3,857.97
3rd – Shaun Deeb – 3,710.64
4th – Phillip Hui – 3,186.17
5th – Daniel Zack – 3,126.13
Article by Craig Bradshaw
