Young Polish poker star Dzmitry Urbanovich took down the EPT Season 12 Dublin €5,300 Main Event, the first one to be held in Ireland in eight years, to collect the first-place prize of €561,900 and add the EPT Main Event champion title to his already impressive collection of poker achievements.
The €5,300 Main Event was completed late last night. It attracted an overall field of 605 entries who generated a prize pool of €3,025,000. The top 87 finishers received a share of the money, with lowest payouts worth €9,100.
Day 6, the event’s final one, started with the 6 remaining players returning to play down to an eventual champion. Action started with Urbanovich not only holding the majority of chips but also headlining the 6 finalists. The player was consistent in his determination to win the event and started extending his chip lead early in play.
On Hand #4 for the day, Urbanovich eliminated Englishman Rhys Jones in 6th place. The latter received the amount of €119,450. As it could be seen all 6 finalists were secured with a six-figure payout from the prestigious tournament.
It took a little while before another player left the final table. On Hand #38, Greek player Ilios Kamatakis was busted in 5th place by German Gilles Bernies. He scooped the amount of €152,600 for his efforts. And although Bernies won a large pot for eliminating the Greek, he was still quite behind Urbanovich.
However, the German took the lead at some point and managed to extend it further until he was holding two-thirds of all the chips in play.
Bernies was responsible for the elimination of the next two players and he did this within two consecutive hands. On Hand #94, he busted Patrick Clarke from Ireland in 4th place, good for €193,650. A hand later, the other Englishman at the table – Kully Sidhu, was eliminated in 3rd place. His share of the prize pool amounted to €250,300.
At the time the heads-up match between Urbanovich and Bernies started, the latter had four times more chips than his opponent. Chips swung back and forth for a while, but when Urbanovich took the lead at last, he made sure to never relinquish it. The young Pole needed a total of 61 hands to finish his opponent.
Hand #156 turned out to be the last one played at the tournament. Bernies moved all in from the button with [Qd][7h]. Urbanovich called immediately with [Ks][Kd]. The [7s][4c][5s] ran out on the flop but were of no help to Bernies. The [9d] came on the turn and the [9s] appeared on the river to secure Urbanovich with the better two pair. Thus, it became clear that Bernies would have to settle for the runner-up finish and the second-place prize of €349,800.
