Rutger Hennen Wins World Poker Tour Prime Amsterdam Main Event

Rutger Hennen – Photo Credit: World Poker Tour.

Rutger Hennen won the World Poker Tour Prime main event hosted at Holland Casino right in the middle of Amsterdam on March 22 to earn a top prize worth $227,472. The Dutchman scored what was by far the largest cash of his poker career to take his total earnings above $245,000 after a very long day of play that saw the final table last an exhausting 297 hands in all!

The €1,100 buy-in no-limit hold’em tournament held four starting flights to build a field of 1,340 entries. That put the total prize pool at $1,393,455, with the top 168 players cashing for at least $1,930.

All the players that made the money returned for Day 2, and the action saw the field whittled down to 12 contenders slated to return on the final day of play. Sven Stok (12th), Heskey Selva (11th), and Max Deveson (10th) made deep runs in the money, but they were the three players who fell before the final nine took their seats to decide a champion.

Hennen started the final table in the bottom half of the stacks before putting together his run to victory. He scored a timely double and dragged enough pots to stay alive until the first break, but he was still bottom-two in chips at that time. Hennen started to step on the accelerator during the next stretch of play, picking up a lot of small and big pots to build up to the second-largest stack in the field by the time dinner break rolled around without the benefit of another double up.

He scored his first knockout punch by taking out Matin Talebi in sixth place. That momentum kept rolling when he eliminated Jeffrey Jol in fifth place to make it two in a row. A couple of hands later Hennen took the chip lead for the first time at the final table. Hennen could do no wrong at that point as he hit quad fives to win another pot during four-handed play.

His pocket jacks then held against the A-K Vasyl Vasylyshyn to send the Ukrainian player out of the tournament in fourth place. Just a few hands later Robbie Schiffbauer fell at the hands of Hennen in third place. That set up a final match between Hennen and Maksym Klopotok of Ukraine, with the chip advantage at nearly 7:1 in favor of the Dutchman.

Klopotok doubled up twice to prolong the heads-up final, but Hennen was still ahead and began to pull away. Klopotok then managed to find a third and fourth double as well, but they were never enough for him to challenge for the chip lead. The final hand saw Hennen raise to 2 million on the button, and then Klopotok shoved for his final 12.4 million with A-8 offsuit in the hole. Hennen called to cover and was ahead with pocket sevens. That hand held up on a board dealt 10-9-5-6-9 and Klopotok was out in second place. He took home $151,667 for the runner-up finish, which was his largest tournament score by far.

Here is a look at the payouts and rankings points awarded on the final day:

The next stop on the WPT Prime schedule will be the WPT Prime Voyage aboard the Virgin Voyages Valiant Lady cruise ship with a $1,100 buy-in main event from April 1-4.

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