Martin Soukup from the Czech Republic took down the field of the Unibet Open Malta €1,100 Main Event last night to take home the tournament trophy and a check with the first-place prize of €65,000 written on it.
The tournament saw 292 entries paying the €1,100 buy-in fee to generate a prize pool of €292,000. The top 36 places got paid, with min-cash totaling €2,000.
The event’s final day saw 10 hopefuls returning to play down to a champion. Dutch player Bas de Laat led the final 10 into Day 3 but quickly lost his advantage. Mariusz Czarnojan was the first to leave after he could not hold up against Griffin Benger. Following his elimination, the official nine-handed final table was set. It started with none other but Soukup as the chip leader with 1,661,000 in chips.
Emil Westerberg was the first to leave the table of nine. His 9th place in the tournament secured him with a payout of €6,400. Shortly after, Global Poker League Commentator Griffin Benger hit the rail in 8th place for €8,550. Although the player was the one to headline the event’s final day, he was apparently short of luck.
Start-of-the-day chip leader Bas de Laat was the next to go. He collected the amount of €10,700 for finishing 7th in the tournament. Christian Ostfelt was then eliminated in 6th place, good for €12,900. Tim van Meene hit the rail in 5th place for €16,150.
Soukup then busted Piotr Marzejon in 4th place. The latter scooped a €21,500 share of the prize pool for his deep run in the event. Gerret Van Lancker finished 3rd for a payout of €29,000.
Thus, apart from Soukup, it was only Ukrainian Vitalii Belyaev who was left at the final table. Two-handed play began with the Czech player holding three times more chips than his opponent. And it took about an hour for Soukup to defeat Belyaev.
On what turned out to be the last hand for the evening, Soukup raised to 160,000 with [Ks][4s] and his opponent called with [Kd][10d]. The [As][10s][8s] appeared on the flop and the Ukrainian checked. Soukup bet 200,000 and Belyaev called. The [Qc] came on the river and the Ukrainian checked once again. Soukup bet 400,000 and his opponent called. The river ran out [2h] and Belyaev checked. Soukup moved all in and his opponent called after giving it some thought. Eventually, he collected the amount of €45,000 for his runner-up finish.
