The European version of the World Series of Poker finished its fifth year just recently. Many Americans that can no longer play on the PokerStars download traveled to Europe hoping to get some live action in. As a result, an American rose to the top of the leaderboard to win the biggest payout in WSOPE history.
The WSOP Europe Main Event had a buy-in of €10,400. Just short of 600 people paid the buy-in, which sent the prize pool rocketing up to €5,692,800 with €1,400,000 awaiting the victor.
Elio “smokrokflock” Fox came into the final table enjoying the chip lead thanks to a huge pot he stole with TT in a three way preflop all-in against AK and AA. When the AA was flipped over, he probably thought he was gonna have to venture back to his accommodations to use his 888 Poker download!
Max Silver was the first departure of the final table, wagering his final chips with AK against Chris “moorman1” Moorman’s JJ. Silver couldn’t find any Aces or Kings, so he was the 8th place finisher.
It was quiet for a while, but then Fox and Jake Cody decided to play the largest pot of the event thus far. After a series of bets preflop, they ended up getting it all-in preflop for a 140 big blind pot: Cody’s JJ against Fox’s TT. Fox was probably happy to see the 876 that gave him additional outs, and he put them to good use. A 9 fell on the turn to give Fox a straight, which meant that Cody needed one of two tens to make a higher straight. Neither materialized, and this sent Cody out in 7th place in brutal fashion.
Shawn “buck21” Buchanan was the next to bust, failing to double up against Dermot Blain. But Blain busted next in 5th place, and then fourth place was Brian Roberts. I guess these guys won’t bother with that Roulette bonus now that they have so much money!
This left the talented trio of Fox, Moorman, and Moritz “catenaccio” Kranich to do battle. Kranich didn’t last too much longer as he pushed all-in with a low suited connector and was called by the 99 of Fox. No miracle came and Kranich finished in 3rd.
When heads-up play started, Fox had a 2 to 1 chip lead over Moorman. He held this lead up until the final hand in which he got it in with AT against Moorman’s A7. Fox won this hand and was declared the winner!
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Fifth Year of WSOPE Finished in France
