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EPT Monte Carlo Grand Final – final table report
Posted by: James Carter. - Mon, 2009-05-04 14:25
The EPT’s Season 5 Grand Final is over and the champion is Holland’s Pieter de Korver. There was only one challenger to European supremacy at the final table, but that was a rather formidable one: American Matthew Woodward narrowly missed the win, after he’d survived 6 opponents at the final table. He eventually succumbed to De Korver in the heads-up stage.
Going into the final table action, it was Norway’s Dag Martin Mikkelsen who held a massive chip lead (over 7 million chips) over his nearest opponents, Matthew Woodward and Peter Traply. Mikkelsen was responsible for the first elimination of the day too.
After a period of quiet laid-back play, during which players appeared to size up the opposition, the action exploded suddenly, with a monster of a showdown between Trapley and Mikkelsen. The hand saw a raise and a re-raise before the flop as Peter Trapley decided to shove it all in on his A,Ko. Woodward, one of the players involved in the preflop action folded, but Mikkelsen decided to make the call on his pair of Qs. The board totally bricked out, to send Trapley to the rail in 8th place, in possession of a €170,000 prize.
Daniel Zink of Germany was the next to go, eliminated courtesy of Dag Martin Mikkelsen. His Ah, Jh lost a race against Mikkelsen’s A,Ko on a board which gave both players two pairs.
After Zink’s elimination, Mikkelsen looked like he couldn’t possibly be stopped as his stack had grown to over 15 million.
Mikhail Tulchinsky disposed of Alem Shah next, then he sent Eric Qu to the rail as well.
Mikkelsen was still well in control when the field shrunk to four, though he was to be hit by a streak of bad luck soon. De Korver managed to double up in the meantime, clawing back from the brink of elimination. From that point on, de Korver took the reins firmly in hand: he tripled up through Woodward and he managed to double up through Mikkelsen no fewer than 3 times.
Surprisingly enough, it was Mikkelsen who busted out in 4th place eventually. Woodward then took care of Tulchinsky in 3rd, and the heads-up stage was set.
Over 45 hands de Korver gradually imposed his control over the game, and eventually eliminated the American on a 6,4o vs 9s,6s match-up.
