Poker pro Benjamin Pollak took down the field of the EPT Barcelona €50,000 Single-Day High Roller after battling his way through a field of 69 entries and an all-French heads-up that saw him emerge from a chip deficit. The player added €979,000 to his already quite hefty poker bankroll that now exceeds $11 million.
The €50,000 High Roller tournament was played over a single day. It attracted 69 contestants, of whom 54 unique ones and 15 re-entries. That created a prize pool of €3,347,190 which was split among the nine final tablists.
A 30-second shot clock provided for additional poker thrill as action unfolded quite rapidly. It should be noted that Pollak demonstrated excellent performance throughout the day. Cards came the player’s way multiple times, but his skills, aggressive style, and composure were also instrumental for his latest poker triumph.
The field was reduced to the final 11 players in just a dozen of levels. Then it took Pollak a single hand to eliminate Linus Loelinger and Stanley Choi in 11th and 10th place and thus set the official final table. The French poker pro actually entered that stage of play as the chip leader and very much maintained that advantage as action progressed.
The short stacks at the final table were quickly eliminated. Action actually did not reduce its speed as players were falling out of competition one after another. The final table of the €50,000 High Roller tournament included seasoned poker pros such as former WSOP Main Event Champion Ryan Riess (who finished 4th for €344,700), Englishman Jack Salter (7th; €164,000), and Alex Foxen (3rd; €456,900). In the end, it was Frenchman Jean-Noel Thorel, an accomplished player himself, whom Pollak had to battle against heads-up.
All-French Finale
Thorel was actually the chip leader at the start of heads-up. The player had 3.8 million at that point to Pollak’s 3.1 million. However, the ultimate champion regained control over the majority of chips several hands into heads-up.
While Thorel was playing a bit of a passive-agressive poker, Pollak was putting great pressure on his final opponent to chip at his stack. The two-handed match lasted around 40 minutes, during which the two players exchanged playful banters and were all friendly towards each other.
On what turned out to be the final hand of the tournament, shoved from the button for his last 565,000. Pollak gave it a thought for about five seconds before calling and flipping [Ah][9d] to Thorel’s [Ad][3h]. A board of [6s][7h][Js][Jc][10h] ran out and Pollak’s higher kicker secured him with the victory. As for Thorel, he collected €703,000 for his efforts. It should be noted that the French player has run pretty deep into a number of major tournaments, including high roller ones, over the course of his career, but has never won a major poker title.
As for Pollak, he scored one of his largest live tournament cashes by taking down the €50,000 buy-in high roller. Last year, the player finished third in the WSOP Main Event for a cash prize of $3.5 million.
