The Czech Republic now has two WSOP gold bracelet winners, after local player Artur Rudziankov won the $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em or Event #58 on the schedule of this year’s Series. The gold piece, precious to every poker player in the world, was complemented by a first-place prize of $395,918.
The $1,500 buy-in tournament was scheduled to take place over three days, but Rudziankov and his heads-up opponent Mario Prats Garcia, originally from Spain and now residing in Prague, too, needed an extra day to battle it out.
The event attracted a behemoth field of 1,763 entries. Start of Day 3 saw it whittled down to 28 players who were to determine the winner. An official final table of nine was set with the elimination of John Phan in 10th place. And it was then only a matter of several hands before the first finalist hit the rail. Scott Lychwick was that unfortunate one.
By that time, Rudziankov had established himself as the chip leader, with Prats trailing not that far behind him. The remaining eight players went for a dinner break. Action slowed quite a lot after they returned and it took hours and hours before the final table was reduced to just two players – Rudziankov and Prats.
Heads-up began with the Czech native holding a massive chip lead over the last man standing between him and the gold bracelet. The two players exchanged several hands, but late-night action did not seem to suit Prats very well and the player suggested they called it a day. Although Rudziankov had gained quite a momentum by that time, he agreed to end play shortly after midnight when they completed the scheduled levels for Day 3.
Play resumed from Hand #168 on Monday. Rudziankov was still the chip leader at the time holding two times more chips than his opponent. The two players fought for 32 hands before the name of the winner became known. Hand #200 turned out to be the final one in play.
Rudziankov moved all in from the button to see his opponent call instantly for his last 495,000. Rudziankov turned over [Jd][4c] against Prats’ [Ac][Js]. The board ran out [4s][2s][7d][8c][7s] to send the Spaniard to the rail, despite his better starting hand. Prats collected the amount of $244,611 for his second-place finish.
Commenting on his strategy for the tournament, Rudziankov said that he was running very hot and that he just played his good hands and folded the bad ones. Asked about his opponent’s request to end Day 3 play, the champion said that he understood Prats. The player also recollected his running deep into a $1,000 buy-in event two years ago. Back then he was playing heads-up against Argentina’s Ivan Luca and asked for an additional day in hopes to gain momentum against his opponent. It was not his event, though, and the player had to wait for two years before scooping a WSOP title.
