Steve O’Dwyer broke the $12m mark in live tournament earnings and moved into the top 20 all-time with a win in the €50k EPT Prague Super High Roller today.
The Irish-American live tournament specialist Steve O'Dwyer conquered a top quality field and beat Canadian pro Sam Greenwood heads-up
It’s his seventh final-table finish and third victory in a tournament with a $10,000 or more buy-in in the last 12 months.
O'Dwyer collected €746,543 for the win after a two-handed deal. Greenwood claimed €643,607, the biggest cash of his live career.
Every Bustout a Notable One
With 42 unique entrants on Day 1, four additional players on Day 2 and 10 re-entries the total field hit 56 entries. Last year the event had 42 unique players and nine re-entries to put a quarter of a million Euros more in the prize pool for 2015.
Mike Watson
In a €50k re-entry event you won’t find a lot of unknown players so even the players who busted early – Adrian Mateos, Juha Helppi, Henrik Hecklen, Mike Watson, Mike McDonald, Joni Jouhkimainen, Dominik Nitsche, Ivan Luca, Fedor Holz and Jason Mercier - were notable.
Quite often they fell due to coin flips. Mercier, for example, lost his stack when he moved in with K-Q and was called by Daniel Dvoress with sixes.
Tobias Reinkemeier had to go when his A-Q couldn’t connect against the tens of Anthony Zinno, who also eliminated Alex Bilokur with pocket fives against A-8.
Christoph Vogelsang failed to hit with A-Qs against the jacks of O’Dwyer.
Sometimes they hoped for a coin flip and found themselves dominated, like Bryn Kenney when he shoved nines and was stopped by O’Dwyer's queens or Stephen Chidwick who did the exact same against Greenwood.
Ole Schemion called all-in with K♣ 5♣ on a flop of Q♣ J♣ T♥ but Greenwood held A♣ 8♣ and when turn and river bricked Schemion busted in tenth place. Zinno was the last to go on Day 2, bubbling not only the official final table but also the money, as there were only eight spots ITM.
Luuk Gieles, on the other hand, never got in trouble on Day 2 and managed to stay in the top five of the leaderboard all the way through.
Dinner and a Deal
Big score for Greenwood
At the final table Gieles couldn’t hold on to his lead for very long. After shortstack John Juanda busted pretty early on it was the Dutchman who lost all his chips and finished in seventh.
Dvoress and Thomas Mühlöcker were grinded down by the table without a lot they could do about it while Dzmitry Urbanovich seemed set to make another run at the title.
The Polish phenom didn’t make it to the top three spots, though, as he lost a huge pot against Greenwood with A-K vs 6-6 on a roller coaster board K-x-x – A – 6 and never recovered.
Igor Kurganov, who led for quite some time during the final, then made what you could call a mistake when he brought his chips in with A-J against O’Dwyer’s A-Q. He busted soon after and paved the way for a Greenwood vs O’Dwyer final with O'Dwyer having a 5-2 chiplead.
The final started with the dinner break and during that dinner break the two contestants agreed on a deal that left €22.3k to play for.
18 hands later the duel was over. Greenwood couldn’t find his outs with T-9 on a Q-J-4 – 6 – 5 board. He decided to push all his chips in and O’Dwyer out of the pot, but he wouldn’t budge and eventually found a call with J-T and second pair.
Official SHR Final-Table Payouts
- 1 Steve O’Dwyer - €746,543*
- 2 Sam Greenwood - €643,607*
- 3 Igor Kurganov - €376,400
- 4 Dzmitry Urbanovich - €285,000
- 5 Thomas Mühlöcker - €220,500
- 6 Daniel Dvoress - €172,100
- 7 Luuk Gieles - €137,140
- 8 John Juanda - €107,550
- *represents a 2-way deal
For a full rundown of the day's action check the PokerStars blog.
