The best online tournament player in the world right now looks mighty dangerous in the live arena after Day 4 of EPT Malta.
Germany's Fedor “CrownUpGuy” Holz, currently ranked #1 on PocketFives worldwide ranking, finished second in chips after Day 4 of EPT Malta with 3.1 million.
He trails only Czech player Antonin Duda who finished with 3.4m for the overnight chip lead.
Holz is on a serious heater considering less than two weeks ago he finished 11th at WPT Vienna for $11,322 but dominated much of the tournament.
Team PokerStars Pro Dominik Panka, the 2014 Spirit of Poker Rising Star Award winner, also made it into the final 23 with 391,000 chips.
Canadian Chartier Busts in Sick Cooler
Sam Chartier has been one of the chip leaders for nearly the entirety of EPT Malta but finally busted in a hand that no one could escape.
Chartier’s chip stack shrunk in the early stages of Day 4 before he finally 4-bet shoved his last 358,000 into the middle with pocket aces.
To Chartier’s delight his opponent called with pocket kings. Unfortunately for Chartier the flop was incredibly unkind as it came K♦ 7♦ 8♦ giving his opponent a set of kings.
Chartier did pick up a flush draw but never got there and was eliminated in 26th place.
JC Alverado, Yann Dion and online superstar Liviu “0Human0” Ignat were also among the notable players who fell to the rail on Day 4.
A total of 23 players will return to the Hilton Malta tomorrow with action resuming at noon. Here’s a look at the top 10 chip counts at the end of Day 4:
- 1. Antonin Duda - 3,476,000
- 2. Fedor Holz - 3,146,000
- 3. Hossein Ensan - 2,639,000
- 4. Remi Wyrzykiewicz - 2,104,000
- 5. Javier Gomez Zapatero - 1,877,000
- 6. Koray Aldemir - 1,667,000
- 7. Jean Montury - 1,363,000
- 8. Mateusz Moolhuizen - 1,249,000
- 9. Sergio Aido - 1,187,000
- 10. Robin Ylitalo - 972,000
One Champion, One Orbit: Things Go Wrong for Wrang
Today we spent an orbit with Denmark's Jannick Wrang who won EPT Campione back in 2012.
By the time we joined his table he had 320k chips – barely a healthy stack with the blinds at 8k/16k and a 2k ante.
Hand 1) Middle Position: Wrang raises to 35k and fires a continuation bet of 40kon an #A9♦#7 flop. This prompts his opponent to fold. Wrang's stack increases by 57k chips.
Hand 2) UTG+1: Wrang folds. (-2k)
Hand 3) UTG: Wrang folds. (-2k)
Hand 4) Big Blind: The player on the button opens to 35k and Wrang calls. Flop: J♥ J♠ 9♠. Wrang checks and folds to a 40k continuation bet. (-37k)
Hands 5) though 8) Wrang folds. (-16k)
Hand 9) UTG+1: Wrang opens to 37k and the player on the button calls. Flop is K♣ 9♣ 8♥. Wrang checks and folds to a 45k bet by his opponent. (-39k)
Overall result: Three out of nine hands played, one hand won, 39k chips (2.5 big blinds) lost. Not too great and things didn't turn around for Wrang either.
Roughly two hours later he was sent to the rail when he got all of his chips – 310k at this time (approximately 16 big blinds ) – in with Ace-Queen preflop. Polish player Remigiusz Wyrzykiewicz called Wrang's shove with tens, immediately flopped a third ten and with his set busted the Danish pro in 27th.
"The Worst Decision in Poker History"
Usually we tell you about a situation here in this tournament and how it was handled.
Today we’re telling you how a present floorman would have handled a situation completely different from the way it actually went down.
This incident happened at ANZPT Sydney a few weeks ago. In a hand with a very large pot, the dealer accidentally mucked the river card before anybody could see it.
The floorman was called over, declared the hand dead and had the chips split up between the two opponents.
In the forums this was later called “the worst decision in poker history." This is how floorman Dave from Ireland would have handled it:
“It eludes me how the tournament staff made that decision. When a hand goes as deep as the river, you have to find a way to end it properly with a winner and a loser. Or a split pot, of course.
“In this situation I would have had the dealer take the deck plus the muck, shuffle all the cards together and then deal the river again.
“The reason here is that this is the only way to ensure that the original river card has at least the chance to be dealt again.”
