Michael Soyza continues his victory run at EPT Barcelona High Roller; Over 4300 entries for EPT National
Michael Soyza has done it again! The Malaysian pro has been tearing up the felt all over the world with the 2018 EPT Barcelona in Spain as his latest hunting ground. Last night, Soyza took down the €10,300 High Roller event opener, overcoming a field of 124 entries. He shipped in a huge payday of €302,500 (~US$344,086) and his first-ever victory in Europe.
Entering the final table, Soyza was well-positioned with the second largest stack however early losses quickly sent him tumbling to half stack. He bounced back and jumped into the command post after eliminating Luc Greenwood (8th), Liv Boeree (6th), and Bahram Chobineh (4th). Despite Kai Lehto sending out Orpen Kisacikoglu in 3rd place, Soyza still had the chip advantage entering heads up. Within that same round, Soyza eliminated Lehto to capture the win.
Final Table payouts
Prizepool: €1,202,800 – Buyin: €10,300 – Entries: 124 – ITM: 17
1st Michael Soyza – €302,500
2nd Kai Lehto – €204,500
3rd Orpen Kisacikoglu – €133,000
4th Bahram Chobineh – €110,100
5th Dario Sammartino – €88,800
6th Liv Boeree- €70,000
7th Goran Mandic – €53,500
8th Luc Greenwood – €40,300
9th Denys Shafikov – €30,100
An incredible year for Michael Soyza
2018 continues to be bountiful for Soyza. To date, his impressive list of cashes has climbed to 21 well exceeding last year’s total of 17 cashes. Including his latest win, he now has six for the year with three of them paying out six-digits.
- April 2018: 1st place at APPT Korea Incheon Main Event – ₩158,700,000 (~US$148,629)
- June 2018: 1st place at the $1,655 Mid-States Poker Tour – Deep Stack Championship Series – in Las Vegas – US$588,249
Some of his other deep runs also produced hefty payouts. Prior to Barcelona, Soyza won the APPT Manila High Roller Shot Clock event in the Philippines and earned nearly $60,000.
In Macau, he collected HK$504,000 (~US$64,237) for his 3rd place finish at the Macau Millions High Roller event and at the APT Macau Championships, another HK$195,000 (~US$24,845) for finishing 4th at the High Rollers event. To kick off his spectacular year, Soyza placed 2nd at the A$1,150 Aussie Millions Six Max event for a pocketful A$84,280 (~US$67,452).
His combined live tournament winnings just for 2018 comes to an astounding $1.3 Million bringing his overall career total to nearly US$2.3 Million. Per Hendon Mob, Soyza is now ranked fifth in the Malaysia All Time Money List. He is ranked 26th in the GPI and running first for GPI Asia.
EPT Barcelona National attracts 4348 entries
While the High Roller event was winding down, extremely long lines were brewing at the €1,100 Barcelona National. This highly popular event saw a head-turning 4557 entries in 2017 and the scene this year was no different. The kick off flight saw over 900 players registered and climbing by the starting gun.
At the completion of the four starting days, a massive 4,348 runners signed up. News reports stated that nearly 700 alternates were accommodated. Randy Lew tweeted that there were 598 alternates before he was seated.
Alternate 598! Love hate relationship. Love the field size…hate the wait! #EPTBarcelona pic.twitter.com/6vcEyn8cwe
— Randy Lew (@nanonoko) August 23, 2018
Breaking down the event by numbers:
Day 1a: 1,264 players
Day 1b (turbo): 376 entries
Day 1c: 1,864 entries
Day 1d (turbo): 844 entries
650 players returned for Day 2. All of them looking at a massive prize pool of €4,127,560. Everyone was guaranteed a payout of €1,650. At the completion, the eventual winner is slated to earn an enormous €547,000 along with the PokerStars Players NL Hold’em Championship Platinum Pass worth US$30,000.
Article by Tricia David
