Australian poker globetrotter Adam Kharman defeated Norway's Kurt Skimmeland heads-up in the Kings of Tallinn €1,100 Main Event to win the €64,280 top prize and the coveted trophy on Sunday evening at Olympic Park Casino and adjoining Hilton Tallinn Park.
Kharman, who took sixth place in the Kings of Tallinn Main Event last year, put on one of the most commanding final table performances at any international poker Main Event in the Estonian capital of Tallinn. The Aussie came into the final table with the chip lead and went coast-to-coast en route to the victory while also eliminating four of his seven final table opponents.
Usually, the chip leader will cough up the lead at least once even if winning an event. This was not the case today as there was little doubt at any point in time that Kharman was going to lose control of the table.
"I'm so happy," shared Kharman to PokerListings after securing the victory. "Lots of time and energy go into poker and so grateful it has rewarded me. I think I played really well except at the start of the event when I had to re-enter. I played well, ran well, and had no bad beats. Nice way to win!"
Kharman was aggressive from eight players until he was heads-up against Skimmeland when he took his foot off the gas for some time.
"I was able to leverage my stacks against the next biggest stacks and put pressure on the players I knew I could put pressure on," Kharman shared about his play. "It was nice having the short stacks around for a while."
| Place | Player | Country | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Adam Kharman | Australia | €64,280 |
| 2 | Kurt Skimmeland | Norway | €48,150 |
| 3 | Algirdas Saveikis | Lithuania | €35,510 |
| 4 | Vincas Tamasauskas | Lithuania | €25,050 |
| 5 | Jordi Baixas | Spain | €18,930 |
| 6 | Ilari Sahamies | Finland | €14,130 |
| 7 | Marius Olsvik | Norway | €10,650 |
| 8 | Ville Heikki Juhana Konttinen | Finland | €7,860 |
Kharman entered the final table with the chip lead and never let it go with Skimmeland always in second place just behind Kharman. They eliminated the entire final table between the two players, with Kharman taking care of four players and Skimmeland three.
Thanks to both Julian Herold and Sebastian Wahl hitting the rail during the final hand of Day 3, the final table featured eight players instead of nine. Very soon out of the gate it was down to just five players.
First Skimmeland eliminated Juhana Konttinen when his queens were good against eights before Kharman woke up with aces and managed to eliminate both Finnish poker legend Ilari 'Ziigmund' Sahamies with nines and Marius Olsvik with ace-queen.
The action slowed down for some time with both the short-stacked Lithuanians at the table in WSOP bracelet winner Vincas Tamasauskas and countrymate Algirdas Saveikas doubling their stack. Jordi Baixas attempted to do the same with king-nine. However, he wasn't able to beat Skimmeland's king-queen and hit the rail in fifth place.
Shortly after, Skimmeland sent Tamasauskas packing on a bad beat when his king-queen got there against ace-queen. Saveikas then ran his king-five suited into Kharman's big slick and Kharman had about quadruple the chip stack of Skimmeland to start heads-up play.
As we already mentioned, Kharman changed gears during heads-up play. He shared some of that came from the fact that there were no ICM implications but also that Skimmeland was a skilled and tricky player with a passive playing style.
A few blind levels passed and although Skimmeland did manage to double once, he never was able to gain any ground. Eventually, Skimmeland three-bet king-jack for about 20 big blinds. Kharman called with ace-queen and won the title after Skimmeland bricked the board.
A huge congrats to Adam Kharman for not only improving on last year's sixth-place performance but shipping the Kings of Tallinn Main Event trophy in a memorable fashion.
*Photos courtesy of Kings of Tallinn photographer Elena Kask.
