Home / Poker News August 2012 / EPT Barcelona Main Event – Mikalai Probal Wins
EPT Barcelona Main Event – Mikalai Probal Wins
Posted by: James Carter. - Mon, 2012-08-27 10:09
On Sunday, 8 players returned to the tables of the EPT’s Barcelona Main Event to battle down to a winner. The stakes were indeed high, since the eventual winner would take down a prize of more than €1 million. Ilari Sahamies, the
online poker daredevil who actively played at PokerStars even during the EPT Main Event, was the one who started the day with the largest stack. At the end of it all though, it was another player celebrating his win: Mikalai Probal, who bested Sahamies himself heads-up for the title and the €1,007,550 prize.
Although largely unknown in the poker community, Probal is no stranger to the green felt. He has scored a cash finish in the EPT’s Berlin Main Event this April taking home €7.5k for his 104th place, and he finished 3rd once in
PokerStars’ Sunday Million.
As the final table action kicked off, the pressure was yet again on the short-stacks. It took only 11 hands for the first victim to hit the rail. John Juanda was the one who made the all-in move with pocket 5s. Samuel Rodriguez called him with Ah, 5h after a little bit of thought. The flop didn’t change a whole lot, but the two 7s which fell on the turn and the river counterfeited Juanda’s hand, sending him to the rail in 8th place.
Antonin Duda lost a classic coin flip with an A,Ko against an opponent’s pocket Ks to bite the dust in 7th.
Duda was followed to the rail by Sinel Anton, the first player to fall after the break. Samuel Rodriguez, the locals’ last hope, was the next player to be eliminated. Rodriguez fell to a flush that Joni Jouhkimainen made on the river.
Anaras Alekberovas fell in 4th place, followed by Joni Jouhkimainen in 3rd. The heads-up battle between Sahamies and Probal wasn’t a particularly lengthy one. Sahamies took a nasty hit to his stack early on, a hit from which he couldn’t recover. Eventually, he took down €629.7k for his efforts.
