After a successful premiere last year, Bratislava's Banco Casino once again hosted a world-class festival, which was the Winamax Poker Open. World-class stars, a wide range of off-poker activities, a great atmosphere and a dynamic 6-max format - all this and much more culminated in a Main Event that saw players generate a prizepool of almost 700k euro.
Final day
The title and the biggest cash prizes were up for grabs during Sunday's final day, which saw the top 13 players qualify with a guaranteed €5,560 payout. The predominantly French dominance was complemented in this group by two representatives of the domestic scene, namely Martin Bartos and Richard Miklosovic.
The final peloton at the start of the day was led by the legendary Belgian Pierre Neuville, but the two Winamax Team Pro representatives Leo Margets and Davidi Kitai also continued to be in action. After five tough hours of play, the home and international fans were in for a treat - all three world pros made it to the final table along with the two Slovak representatives!
The course of the final table
Here, however, hopes of a proud triumph for the representatives were rather quickly dashed when, shortly after the last table was formed, Leo Margets was the first to leave. He collected a reward of €12,300 for her seventh place, and just a little more, namely €16,000, went to Davidi Kitai, who followed her to the cash desk from sixth place.
Over four hours of interlude eventually sent 80-year-old Pierre Neuville out of the game in fourth place, adding €28,000 to his respectable lifetime winnings. In the last three, the last Frenchman Victor Fryda was already facing the home pair, but the unstoppable Mato Bartoš took care of that player as well and moved the tournament into a purely Slovak heads-up match.
Slovak heads-up
Bartos started the match with a 2:1 advantage against his opponent Miklosovic, and he didn't want to leave anything to chance and the players literally didn't give anything to each other. One double-up was followed by another, the scales were constantly tipping, but Miklosovic managed to erase the deficit quite quickly and even take the lead. However, after a flip with J J vs K Q Bartos took it to his side again, and this time he didn't give it up.
Everything was decided by a preflop all-in, in which Miklosovic spun for his last 10bb with Q J against Bartos´s J T . Spade's ten right in the window was exactly the card Miklosovic didn't want to see, and a board of 3 A T 2 7 definitely decided the fate of both players and the whole tournament. Martin Bartos became the champion of the huge WPO Bratislava Main Event for €100,000, and his opponent Richard Miklosovic took home an equally handsome €64,500. Congratulations!
Final results of WPO Bratislava:
- Martin Bartoš – 100,000€
- Richard Miklosovic – 64,500€
- Victor Fryda – 42,000€
- Pierre Neuville – 28,000€
- Victor Hoogstoel – 21,000€
- Davidi Kitai – 16,000€
- Leo Margets – 12,300€
