The EPT Malta €25,500 High Roller event was completed with Dzmitry Urbanovich as its winner. The player topped a field of 88 entrants, who created a prize pool of €2.156 million. Of those, only 13 were to be paid.
Urbanovich himself took €572,300 and a trophy for his first place in the event.
Day 3 of the event saw eight players returning for the final table. American Connor Drinan started the day as a chip leader with 893,000 in chips. He was closely followed by Dani Stern with 827,000 and Urbanovich with 734,000.
The first elimination came in Level 20 of the play when Martin Finger faced Urbanovich and was defeated by him. The German was paid €79,800 for his eighth place.
Then, in Level 21, Sam Greenwood, too, fell victim to the soon-to-be-champion. He cashed €102,400 for his seventh position. After Greenwood’s elimination, Urbanovich had a total of 1,600,000 in chips.
About twenty minutes later, Drinan eliminated Piotr Franczak, yet another Polish player who made it to the final table, in sixth place. He took home €129,400. With that said, there were only five players left and they were guaranteed €166,000 each.
In Level 22, Daniel Dvoress defeated Dani Stern. Drinan then sent home his fellow American Nick Petrangelo. Stern and Petrangelo were paid €166,000 and €205,900, respectively.
There were only three remaining players at the final table – Dvoress, Drinan, and Urbanovich. Dvoress was the next to go, as his hand could not stand a chance against Urbanovich’s. Dvoress was paid €263,000 for his third place.
The heads-up play began in Level 23 of the event with Drinan holding 2,674,000 in chips. His opponent had 1,727,000.
It took two levels before the name of the champion was announced. On what turned out the be the last hand, Drinan shoved all in and Urbanovich called. The first had [9d][9s] and the latter had [10c][10h]. The board ran out [5c][6c][5h][Qc][9c] and it became clear that it was Urbanovich who won the first-place prize of €572,300 and the event’s trophy.
Drinan, on the other hand, would have to content himself with a runner-up finish and the amount of €397,800.
The next event of the EPT Malta tournament is the €5,300 Main Event, which is scheduled to kick off tomorrow, March 22.
