Georgios Sotiropoulos became the third Greek to win an event at the 2015 WSOP Europe. What is more, he was the eight player to adorn his wrist with a WSOP gold bracelet at this year’s edition of the European Series. He topped the field of Event #8: €1,100 Turbo No-Limit Hold’em Re-Entry to collect his first-ever WSOP gold piece and the amount of €112,133.
The event featured two starting flights and attracted a total of 546 entries. They created a prize pool of €546,000. The top 56 finishers received their share of the money, with the lowest payout amounting to €1,905.
The second and final day of the event took place yesterday. It saw 46 players returning to the felt to set the official nine-handed final table and to eventually determine the champion. Action resumed from Level 16 with GPI leader Byron Kaverman holding the majority of chips (247,000). At first, things happened really fast as ten players hit the rails within the first 15 minutes of play.
The official final table was set in Level 22. It began with Rafal Tomczak as the chip leader, holding 541,000 in chips. Sotiropoulos was fourth in chips at the beginning of the star-studded final table. The eventual winner had a really tough competition during the nine-handed play as there were three former gold-bracelet winners at the table – Benjamin Zamani, Brian Hastings, and Byron Kaverman. In addition, American John Racener, who has collected more than $7 million in WSOP earnings, was also among the nine finalists last night.
It took six levels of play before the heads-up match between Sotiropoulos and Frenchman Paul Tedeschi was set. And it was quite a quick match that lasted about ten minutes and several hands of play. Sotiropoulos started it with a 2-1 chip lead over his opponent and did not lose momentum even for a second.
On what turned out to be the last hand in play, the French player raised to 110,000 pre-flop and the Greek moved all in. Tedeschi gave it a thought but eventually called for his remaining 1,150,000 chips. The Frenchman tabled [Ah][8c] against his opponent’s [Kc][Qs]. The table ran out [Qd][Jh][3d][Ks][6d] securing the champion with top two pair. As for Tedeschi, he received €69,361 for his efforts.
One-time gold bracelet winner Benjamin Zamani from the United States finished 3rd in the event to collect €50,719. Andre Lommel from Luxembourg took 4th place for €37,636. Rafal Tomczak from Poland was paid €28,318 for his 5th place in the tournament.
John Racener from the United States finished 6th to collect €21,600. American Brian Hastings, who has previously won three gold bracelets, took €16,703 for finishing 7th. Byron Kaverman, yet another former gold piece winner, finished 8th for a payout of €13,094. Rounding out the final table, Asher Conniff from the United States took 9th place to scoop €10,402 of the entire prize pool.
