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Marvin Rettenmaier Wins 2012 $25,000 World Poker Tour Championship

German Pro Wins $1.2 Million, Moves Into 12th In POY Race

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2012 WPT Champion Marvin RettenmaierMarvin Rettenmaier has won the 2012 World Poker Tour Championship $25,000 main event, after enduring a roller coaster heads-up battle. He captured the prestigious title, the $1,196,858 first place prize and 1,008 Card Player Player of the Year points.

As result of this massive win, Rettenmaier has flown up the rankings to 12th place in the overall standings.

Rettenmaier entered the final table with roughly 44 percent of the chips in play, but with tough opponents like Michael Mizrachi, Steve O’Dwyer and Nick Schulman at the table, it wasn’t necessarily going to be easy going. As it turns out, the most difficult hurdle for Rettenmaier to overcome was second-place finisher Philippe Ktorza, who entered the final table as the shortest stack with only 15 big blinds.

At one point in their epic heads-up battle, Ktorza was as short as three big blinds, before doubling up three times in a row to bring things back to even. Ktorza took over the lead, and Rettenmaier got as low as seven big blinds, before eventually doubling up with pocket tens and then sealing the deal with a cooler when he picked up KSpade SuitKClub Suit against Ktorza’s JHeart SuitJDiamond Suit. The Frenchman was unable to draw out and was eliminated in second place for $805,310.

“It feels amazing, especially after that heads-up battle and the whole final table was just crazy,” Rettenmaier told Card Player, “I still have not 100 percent realized what just happened, but it’s amazing.”

Here are the payouts and POY points awarded from the final table:

Place Player Earnings POY Points
1 Marvin Rettenmaier $1,196,858 1,008
2 Philippe Ktorza $805,310 840
3 Michael Mizrachi $424,618 672
4 Nick Schulman $256,235 504
5 Steve O’Dwyer $192,176 420
6 Trevor Pope $155,571 336