Vlad Darie won last night the partypoker WPT Vienna €3,300 Main Event, thus becoming the first-ever Romanian player to capture a WPT Main Tour title. He also collected the first-place prize of €170,800 and a seat into the season-ending WPT Tournament of Champions.
The partypoker WPT Vienna €3,300 Main Event kicked off on March 15. It took six days and 31 levels of play for the name of the champion to be determined. Overall the tournament drew a field of 234 entries who created a prize pool of €680,940. The top 27 places were paid.
Day 5, the event’s last one, kicked off with the 6 finalists returning to play down to a winner. Six-handed play started with Hungarian Zoltan Gal as the chip leader with 1,826,000. Darie was fourth in chips at the beginning of the final table action. It is also interesting to note that German Dietrich Fast, who won the WPT L.A. Poker Classic $10,000 Main Event less than a month ago, was going for his second WPT title. The player started second in chips but hit the rail in 4th place sometime in the middle of the day.
The first elimination occurred on Hand 28 when Giorgios Zisiomopoulos was busted by Darie. The Greek player, who eliminated Fedor Holz on Day 2 of the event, collected €31,500 for his 6th place. Another player left the final table on the very next hand. Dominik Bosnjak could not hold up against Fast and had to content with a fifth-place finish in the tournament and a payout of €39,360.
It took 27 hands before another player was seen go. Fast hit the rail in 4th place, good for €53,450. On Hand #75, Matt Davenport was knocked out in 3rd place to collect €70,800 for his efforts. Thus, start-of-the-day chip leader Gal and Darie were to face each other in a final heads-up match. Two-handed play began with Gal holding two times more chips than his opponent.
It took 78 hands of play before the name of the champion was announced. During those, chips went back and fourth and there were a number of risky hands. Hand #153 turned out to be the last one for the evening and the tournament as a whole. Darie moved all in from the button with [Kh][6h] and Gal called with [Ah][2h]. The board ran out [5d][6c][9s][8h][2c], securing the Romanian with the first-place prize and the title. As for Gal, he collected €109,430 for his runner-up finish.
