When nine finalists returned to Holland Casino Amsterdam on Friday afternoon, it was believed that by the end of the day there will be a 2016 MCOP Main Event winner crowned. As it turned out, there are no certain things in poker and by 3 am on Saturday the name of this year’s victor was not determined yet. Two players – Dutchman Hakim Zoufri and Germany’s Fabio Sperling – bagged and tagged as the gambling venue called it a day.
The two remaining survivors are set to return today at 4 pm local time to Holland Casino Amsterdam to play down to a winner. Zoufri will begin the day as the chip leader with 5,670,000, although his last remaining opponent is not much behind him with his 5,000,000 in chips.
Played on Friday, Day 4 of the MCOP €4,250 Main Event was supposed to be its final one. It commenced at 3 pm local time with nine players seating at the official final table. Finland’s Juha Helppi was leading the final pack of nine at the time cards were tossed in the air. Despite his good advantage, Helppi was eventually eliminated in 4th place for €92,057, thus failing to bring the MCOP title back to his home country. Last year, the Netherlands’ most prestigious poker event was taken down by another Finn – Jussi Nevanlinna.
The tournament’s final table was packed with action from the very beginning. UK’s Charlie Carrel, who headlined the final nine and who made two other final tables earlier this week, was actually the first to leave on Friday. He collected €27,349 in prize money at the payout desk.
Two Dutch players were busted next – Rashed Zade, who took home €33,411 for finishing 8th, and Michiel Brosky, who collected €41,447 for his seventh-place finish.
Finland’s Samuli Sipila went out in 6th place, good for €52,584. Romanian Stefan Fabian was the next to go, scooping €68,514 in prize money. As already mentioned, start-of-the-day chip leader Juha Helppi left in 4th place for €92,057.
By the time there were three players left, Sperling had a huge chip advantage. Yet, the other two had at least 30 big blinds left, so action was guaranteed. Ivan Arbatsky from Kazakhstan eventually started losing his stack bit by bit until he was eliminated in 3rd place for €128,147.
The two remaining contenders – Sperling and Zoufri – then played for about an hour. Zoufri was the one to emerge as the chip leader by winning a bigger pot and several smaller ones. The two survivors will be playing for a first-place prize of €275,608 and the special MCOP champion’s plate. The runner-up will collect €183,820, not a bad payout, too. As mentioned above, action is set to kick of at 4 pm local time at Holland Casino Amsterdam.
