European Poker Tour Snowfest -- Day 4Dane Stays at Top of Leader Board But is Joined By Canadian in Hunt for Gold |
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On day 4 of the PokerStars European Poker Tour Snowfest, high up in the Austrian alps, chip leader Allan Baekke [pictured right] didn’t waste a minute.
In the very first hand, Nasr El Nasr, another strong force within the field, raised to 26,000 and Baekke reraised to 71,000. It was folded to El Nasr who announced all in for a total of 546,000. Baekke rechecked his cards and made the call turning over A
K. El Nasr showed A
7 and the board was dealt 10 10
2
10 4 to put him out after just one hand on day 4.
It was quite rare that Baekke didn’t clean up during a hand as the day 3 chip leader became the day 4 monster and hammered his way to the final table. Baekke wasn’t the only player making moves in the right direction however. Canadian Russell “rdcrsn” Carson went on a fantastic run which ended with him seated besides Baekke on the leader board.
It all started in a hand which saw Carson make his all in move after an early raise to 39,000 from Jim Collopy. Collopy made the 411,000 call with A K only to be shown A A. Nothing changed on the board and Carson doubled up to around 830,000, with Collopy taking a hit.
Not long after this Max Lykov bet 38,000 and Carson [pictured left] raised it to 112,000. Brent Wheeler followed with a reraise to 254,000. Lykov folded, Carson thought for a moment and then decided to go all in for 809,000. Wheeler quickly made the call showing Q Q versus Carson’s A K. An ace came on the flop and Carson remained ahead to take down the massive pot, while Wheeler’s stack dwindled to 600,000.
In the last hand before the break, Carson was back at it again. He raised to 42,000 from the hijack and Bernhard Perner called from the big blind. The flop came J 10 2 and Perner checked. Carson bet 67,000 and Perner tanked before shoving the rest of his chips in.
Carson called and showed Q 9 for the open-ended straight draw, and Perner flipped over 10 10 for a flopped set. The turn brought the Q but the river was the 8 fulfilling Carson’s straight and sending Perner out in 19th for €10,200.
Within one hour and a half Carson had gone from short stack to mega force, and if Baekke looked over his shoulder he would find the Canadian approaching with stealth and determination.
Elsewhere, strong players such as Jim Collopy and Max Lykov were not having such a good day. Collopy eventually moved all in from the hijack for 358,000 and Brent Wheeler made the call on the button. Wheeler had pocket queens and Collopy had K J. A king came on the flop but so did a queen and that was it for the American PokerStars player who hit the rail in 18th place for €10,200.
EPT Kyiv champ Max Lykov [pictured right] left in 13th place, dashing all hopes of the Tour’s first ever double winner. His top pair was beated by Russel Carson’s middle set and he received €15,800 for his efforts.
Another player with high hopes was Marcel Koller. He had a chance to make consecutive EPT final tables but Baekke soon put a stop to that. He turned a straight against Koller’s top pair and with all the money in before the river Koller would never catch up. He was shown the door in 12th place for €20,400.
Following him out was the once heavily stacked Alexander Debus. After losing a critical pot to Allan Baekke, Team PokerStars Pro player Johannes Strassmann finished Debus off. Debus started a raising war which ended with all his chips in the middle preflop and an A-K versus aces battle ensued (the aces belonging to Strassmann). The flop completed Strassman’s set and Debus, who bubbled the final table in Warsaw, left in 10th place for €28,000.
Huub Verdonschot then became the bubble boy after getting into a tussle with Brent Wheeler, which resulted in him moving all in. Wheeler snap-called and showed A K while Verdonschot was behind with A J. An interesting board fell 9 6 5 K J. The Dutchman narrowly missed out on the final table but received €28,000 for coming this far.
The full list of payouts from 9 to 24 are:
9 Huub Verdonschot (Netherlands) €28,000
10 Alexander Debus (Germany) €28,000
11 Johannes Holstege (Germany) PokerStars player €20,400
12 Marcel Koller (Switzerland) €20,400
13 Max Lykov (Russia) €15,800
14 Luca Cainelli (Italy) €15,800
15 Robert Haigh (Germany) €13,000
16 Florian Dohnert (Germany) €13,000
17 Richard Toth (Hungary) Team PokerStars Pro €10,200
18 Jim Collopy (USA) PokerStars player €10,200
19 Bernhard Perner (Austria) €10,200
20 Lee Gaines (USA) €10,200
21 David Wintersberger (Germany) €10,200
22 Cyril Naim (France) €10,200
23 Bertrand Husiaux (France) €10,200
24 Nasr El Nasr (Germany) €10,200
And here are the final table players and their chip counts:
Allan Baekke (Denmark) 4,688,000
Russell Carson (Canada) 3,463,000
Brent Wheeler (USA) 3,096,000
Johannes Strassmann (Germany) 2,034,000
Jonathan Schroer (USA) 972,000
Alain Medesan (Romania) 919,000
Lukas Baumann (Austria) 728,000
Daniel Van Kalkeren (Netherlands) 396,000
While others may be taking to the slopes for some post-event entertainment, these eight men prepare for a different sort of rush as they enter the highest planes of the €1,853,680 ($2,479,226) prize pool, in search of that €445,000 ($595,170) first prize. You can catch all the action when it kicks off at 2 p.m. local time (9 a.m. ET) on the EPT live video feed or the PokerStars blog feed. Plus you will find a full final table recap right here after the event, featuring photographs courtesy of Neil Stoddart and PokerStars.
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