Ihar Soika Wins 2014 EPT Barcelona €10,300 High Roller

The 2014 European Poker Tour Barcelona has been a record-breaking affair. The 100th EPT festival saw a record turnout in the super high roller and the largest main event field in the tour’s history outside of the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure. Wrapping up the series was the €10,300 no-limit hold’em high roller, which also earned the distinction of the biggest field of it’s kind in EPT history when 393 players turned out to build a prize pool of more than €3.8 million ($5,072,968 in U.S. dollars.)

In the end Belarus’ Ihar Soika emerged victorious topping an accomplished final table to win his first live tournament title, the €747,200 first-place prize and 1,500 Card Player Player of the Year points.

Soika entered the final day in fourth chip position among the 21 players remaining, but had to outlast some top-quality opposition including Angel Guillen (21st – €34,300), Vladimir Troyanovskiy (20th – €38,100), Juha Helppi (17th – €42,000), Stephen Chidwick (7th – €125,600), Marc-Andre Ladouceur (6th – €168,600) and Ami Barer (4th – €276,900).

In the end it came down to a heads-up battle between Soika and American superstar Jason Mercier. Soika started the final showdown with more than a 2-to-1 chip advantage, and it didn’t take long before the final hand arose.

Mercier opened for a min-raise to 400,000 form the button and Soika three-bet to 935,000. Mercier moved all-in for roughly 5.5 million total and and some thought Soika made the call with the A9. Mercier was slighlty ahead in a classic race situation with his 66, but was unable to maintain his advantage when the board ran out A10352. With that Soika secured the pot and the title, sending Mercier to the rail in second place with €473,500 and 1,250 POY points. This was Mercier’s fifth final table showing of 2014 and as a result he has climbed to eighth place in the overall POY standings with 3,106 points and year-to-date earnings of $2,778,584.

Fourth-place finisher Ami Barer, who won the Aussie Millions main event for over $1.4 million in January and has now made three final tables since then, earned €276,900 and 750 points. As a result of his success on the tour this year he has moved into third place in the rankings with 3,580 points and year-to-date earnings of $1,930,121.

Here is a look at the payouts and POY points awarded at this final table:

Photos courtesy of PokerStars / Neil Stoddart.

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