This year ‘s edition of the WSOP Europe was officially concluded after the €10,450 Main Event was completed last night. Ten gold bracelets found their new owners and hundreds of hopefuls received their shares of the attractive prize pools featured at the one of the world’s most prestigious poker festivals.
Last night, Kevin MacPhee from the United State topped the field of the Main Event to capture his second WSOP gold bracelet and the total amount of €883,000.
MacPhee won his first gold piece this summer for emerging victorious in the $5,000 Turbo event. Commenting on his accomplishment last night, the player said that he was extremely happy with what he managed to do. MacPhee told interviewers that his goal has always been to win one gold bracelet. Being the pride owner of two such pieces felt unreal, according to the latest WSOP Europe champion.
The Main Event attracted a field of 313 unique entries who created a prize pool of €3,067,400. The top 32 finishers received a share of the prize pool, with payouts starting from €20,000. The Main Event featured two starting flights and four more days of play. Day 5, the event’s last one, saw six players returning to determine the champion. MacPhee started the six-handed final table as the chip leader. The player held more than a half of all the chips in play.
The final table saw six players from 5 different countries. There were two Americans, one Spaniard, one Mexican, one German, and a Swiss player. Although most of the finalists were no strangers to the WSOP, MacPhee was the only former gold bracelet winner.
And it was Felix Bleiker from Switzerland who left the final table first. His elimination occurred about an hour after play commenced. Bleiker’s payout from the Main Event amounted to €130,000. This was his second-ever WSOP cash. A few days ago, the player finished 18th in the €550 Oktoberfest event for €9,218.
Bleiker’s elimination started a flurry of swift bustouts. Ten minutes after the Swiss hit the rails, Kilian Kramer, the only local player at the final table, was eliminated in 5th place to collect the amount of €175,000. Kramer has cashed in 9 WSOP events so far, collecting more than $500,000 in those.
Andrew Lichtenberger from the United States was the next to go. He left about 20 minutes after Kramer. Lichtenberger’s fourth place in the Main Event secured him with a payout €225,000. The player has quite a long WSOP cash history. He has made 30 in-the-money finishes in Series events and has collected more than $2 million in those.
It took only about 20 minutes before another player left the final table. JC Alvarado from Mexico was eliminated in 3rd place to scoop €315,000 of the prize pool. The player has 9 previous cashes in Series events and has collected a total of $271,394 in those.
The heads-up match between MacPhee and David Lopez from Spain started with the eventual champion still holding the chip lead. However, he was not able to maintain it throughout two-handed play. Chips swung back and forth for some time. Yet, MacPhee managed to win a key hand and to regain his lead. Soon after, he collected his opponent’s remaining chips.
On what turned out to be the last hand in play, MacPhee raised to 140,00 and Lopez three-bet to 435,000. MacPhee moved all in and his opponent snap-called. The soon-to-be-champion tabled [Ad][4d] against Lopez’s [Kh][Kc]. The board ran out [7c][5h][2h][3c][Js], thus securing MacPhee with a straight.
Lopez collected €475,000 for his runner-up finish in the Main Event. This was his first-ever WSOP-related cash.
With the conclusion of the 2015 WSOP Europe, there is still one more WSOP gold bracelet to be awarded this year – the one that is to be given to the 2015 WSOP $10,000 Main Event champion. The November Niners are set to return to Rio All-Suites Hotel and Casino on November 8 in order to determine this year’s big champion. Apart from the shiny gold piece, the winner will also receive a first-place prize of $7,680,021.
