The third and final day of the EPT Barcelona High Roller started with 21 players from a record field of 295 (+98 re-entries). It took some time before the final table of eight players was set due to some small stacks that managed to hang on for a bigger payday.
Once the cards were in the air on the official final table, Ihar Soika of Russia held a big lead with 6.7 million in chips. Soika was close to the 9 million mark when he doubled up two other players. The fact is that a lot of players were doubling, including Jason Mercier who got lucky when his ace-ten cracked Barer's pocket aces.
After Pollak was sent packing in fifth place with nine-ten against Soika's pocket aces, the chip counts were as follows: Ami Barer - 5,415,000, Ismail Erkenov - 4,670,000, Ihar Soika - 4,670,000, Jason Mercier - 2,825,000.
Jason Mercier eventually eliminated Ami Barer in 4th with pocket aces against ace-jack, then Soika took out Ismail Erkanov with a flopped straight. After some time of heads-up battle, Soika held a four-to-one chip advantage and put Mercier under intense pressure. Besides that, the blinds were big and Mercier had to do something fast in order to turn things around. He eventually committed his last chips with pocket sixes and Soika called with ace-nine. An ace fell on the flop and no six came to Mercier's rescue.
"It's a huge score," Mercier said. "I had pretty much all of myself in this tournament. I was at risk of bubbling, I was all-in with queens against ace-nine three off the money. I could easily have lost that one and I was all in a million times. Obviously I would have loved to get first, but I'm very happy to get second."
Check out the video below to find out what Ihar Soika thought about the heads-up and the tournament in general.
EPT11 Barcelona, High Roller Date: August 25-27 Buy-in: €10,000 Game: NLHE Entrants: 393 Places paid: 55 Prize pool: €3,851,400 1. Ihar Soika (Belarus) €747,200 and a SLYDE watch 2. Jason Mercier (United States) Team PokerStars Pro, €473,500 3. Ismail Erkanov (Russia) €342,400 4. Ami Barer (Canada) €276,900 5. Benjamin Pollak (France) €219,000 6. Marc-Andre Ladouceur (Canada) PokerStars Team Online, €168,600 7. Stephen Chidwick (United Kingdom) €125,600 8. Carlos Chadha (Canada) €90,900
Jason Mercier eventually eliminated Ismail Erkenov in 4th with pocket aces against ace-jack, then Soika took out Ismail Erkanov with a flopped straight.
dam, how many Erkenovs were playing that final table :o
at least it wasnt another german player to win it this time around, or was it... maybe Soika is german too :o
Congratulations to Ihar Soika for winning this because to defeat Jason Mercier heads up is an achievement in itself. I'm not sure what the prize money was but it must have been huge
I don't know anything about Soika,I can't remember seeing him as winning a tournament before but he must have played well to win this and Mercier is a very good player. I think first place was around a million dollars so that is a great achievement for your first win.
Yeah Jason was lucky on that hand like him as a player and hope he does well in other tournaments he plays , anyway on another note the EPT is getting more and more popular and more entries than last year, showing poker is on the rise and you can still make money if you evolve right and stay in touch as poker is constantly changing nowadays but still the best game in the world!
Nice prizepool and nice moneys awarded. I watched the stream in Pokerstars TV on earlier days about 45 minutes delayed and were nice fights and they not really focused on the size of the money they played for this was so professional and this was good to see. Hope a greet freeroll league fight for October as well during next EPT event.
Write a comment:
You must be logged in, to comment on news...
Disclosure: BankrollMob may earn a commission based on the advertisement material on this site. #AD
The third and final day of the EPT Barcelona High Roller started with 21 players from a record field of 295 (+98 re-entries). It took some time before the final table of eight players was set due to some small stacks that managed to hang on for a bigger payday.
Thanks, "Theapple" 
