After four starting flights and two more levels of late registration the Main Event of The Festival in Tallinn attracted a total of 552 entries that are playing for €264,960.

The first two hours of the Main Event were busy as players had the option to re-enter and multiple players took advantage of that possibility. After two hours the re-entry closed and by then 552 entries were on the clock.

Peter Nordin Bubbles the Main Event

The first big task of the day was playing down to the money ranks with a total of 71 players earning at least a min-cash of €1,100. The bubble was a very short matter as two players were all-in in rapid succession before hand-for-hand-play could even start. First Unibet Qualifier Arkadiusz Liszewski busted and right after that, it was Peter Nordin who was all-in against Oleksandra Shenderei. Nordin had Q Q against Shenderei’s K K . The board didn’t improve Nordin’s hand as it fell A 10 4 2 J and as he left the tournament area all remaining players cheered as they were guaranteed a minimum payout of €1,100.

Oleksandra Shenderei was the last woman standing and will be the last woman returning to the main event tomorrow. She qualified for the tournament via WPT Global where she won a full package for the tournament including accommodation and hospitality package.

By the end of the day, just a tidy field of 30 players bagged chips with Agris Noviks having a substantial lead over the field with almost 1.6 million in chips. Other players with plenty of chips are Germany’s Sascha Manns, Sweden’s Kristoffer Winterstein, and Mikael Viggander.

Chip Counts After Day 2 of the Main Event

Name	Chips	Big Blinds
Agris Noviks	1,595,000	80
Sascha Manns	1,175,000	59
Kristoffer Winterstein	960,000	48
Mikael Viggander	850,000	43
Gregory Partridge	785,000	39
Alberigo Stellanello	775,000	39
Mikael Zackariasen	770,000	39
Jari Mähönen	685,000	34
Inigo Naveiro	620,000	31
Jeroen Aarts	615,000	31
Oleksandra Shenderei	600,000	30
Jere Keitaanranta	595,000	30
Jyri Merivirta	585,000	29
Pal Oygarden	545,000	27
Stefan Bittger	510,000	26
Vasilijs Aleksejenko	505,000	25
Eirik Kristiansen	490,000	25
Toivo Ojasoo	445,000	22
Ronny Albrigtsen	410,000	21
Juhana Leinonen	410,000	21
Eric Wasylenko	390,000	20
Rando Liiber	350,000	18
Vambo Laud	325,000	16
Peder Behr	320,000	16
Svante Nilsson	300,000	15
Torsti Kinnunen	235,000	12
Lars Eklund	220,000	11
Johan Palokangas	205,000	10
Kiu Jin Ha	170,000	9
Henri Wagner	115,000	6

Tomorrow’s penultimate day will kick off at noon EEST with a goal to play down to the final table. Poker enthusiasts will not only be able to follow along with the action on The Festival Series blog but also be able to watch a feature table on TheFestivalOG Twitch channel with hole cards exposed starting at around 2:30 p.m. EEST.

Barring any deals, the winner will take home €56,100 with five players banking five-figure amounts.

Full Payouts for the Main Event

Place	Player	Prize Money
1		€56,100
2		€36,120
3		€22,040
4		€16,200
5		€12,100
6		€9,100
7		€6,700
8		€5,100
9		€3,950
10		€3,950
11		€3,050
12		€3,050
13		€2,400
14		€2,400
15		€1,980
16		€1,980
17		€1,980
18		€1,980
19		€1,980
20		€1,980
21		€1,980
22		€1,980
23		€1,980
24		€1,980
25		€1,730
26		€1,730
27		€1,730
28		€1,730
29		€1,730
30		€1,730
31	Maksim Petrov	€1,730
32	Thor Dahlbeck	€1,730
33	Tobias Napel	€1,520
34	Tihomir Yanev	€1,520
35	Anne Standal	€1,520
36	Jarkko Kuusisto	€1,520
37	Juho Heiska	€1,520
38	Lasse Laukkarinen	€1,520
39	Greger Larsson	€1,520
40	Jari Hurri	€1,520
41	Totti Lind	€1,350
42	Meelis Ahman	€1,350
43	Erki Andressoo	€1,350
44	Heikki Huhtala	€1,350
45	Juris Hlibovs	€1,350
46	Totti Matias Arosuo	€1,350
47	Edvin Ström	€1,350
48	Terje Sirnes	€1,350
49	Marlon Andrey Lopez Martinez	€1,200
50	Per Lindström	€1,200
51	Aleksandr Kuperman	€1,200
52	Madis Ormisson	€1,200
53	Massi Mirza	€1,200
54	Oskar Engvall	€1,200
55	Krzystof Budka	€1,200
56	Johan Alen	€1,200
57	Rune Hastrup	€1,100
58	Hanno Kerem	€1,100
59	Taago Tamm	€1,100
60	Oyvind Kildal Stangnes	€1,100
61	Alex Lianes	€1,100
62	Krystian Nalepka	€1,100
63	Phenporn Laatikainen	€1,100
64	Benny Hagberg	€1,100
65	Lars Hole	€1,100
66	Aleksiy Baranovskiy	€1,100
67	Jani Tuovinen	€1,100
68	Gregory Bregy	€1,100
69	Maria Ling	€1,100
70	Pyry Kekäläinen	€1,100
71	Teemu Kailasvuo	€1,100

Side Events Galore

In addition to the Main Event, The Festival Tallinn also boasted tons of side events as well. The Blackjack and Roulette events concluded last night which were won by Marek Kotelnikov for €2,372 and Johan Palokangas for €1,548 respectively. Also ongoing on Friday were the €1,050 NLH High Roller as well as the first of two days of the €250 Pokerlistings Deepstack (over 250 entries), and the €330 Open Face Chinese (37 entries).

You can follow all the action over at TheFestival.com and read up on our daily recaps here.

As was to be expected, Day 1c of The Festival in Tallinn proved to be the biggest of the starting flights with 250 entries overall. This brings the field up to 431 entries with late entries and re-entries open not only throughout the turbo Day 1d flight taking place tonight but also the first two blind levels of Friday’s Day 2.

After 10 action-packed levels, 88 players bagged chips with Gregory Bregy taking the overall lead after the first of four starting flights. Other players with plenty of chips are Sweden’s Sven-Ake Willix, Pal Oygarden and Meelis Meliste.

Those are the top stacks of Day 1c:

Player	Chips	Blinds
Gregory Bregy	209,100	131
Sven-Ake Willix	195,300	122
Pal Oygarden	175,300	110
Meelis Meliste	171,000	107
Jyri Merivirta	170,700	107
Jere Keitaanranta	161,100	101
Aleksei Gontsar	157,600	99
Maria Ling	152,200	95
Roland Kivi	150,400	94
Terje Sirnes	149,900	94

Playing For a Good Cause

Of course, The Festival is about Poker and Blackjack and Roulette – but it’s also about fun and meeting friends. For some of the players, it’s also for a good cause. Yesterday’s Charity Event, won by Frode Fagerli was an entire tournament dedicated to good causes.

In the Main Event, Oskar Engvall is also playing for a good cause. He has pledged to donate half of his winnings to the Swedish Breast Cancer Foundation. There is an unfortunate reason for this donation. His sister, who is the wife of one of our colleagues is suffering from terminal breast cancer. Engvall bagged almost 60k chips and has decent chances of making a deep run tomorrow.

H.O.R.S.E. and Half & Half

While the Main Event was the biggest tournament today, several side events ran alongside. For lovers of mixed game variants, a H.O.R.S.E. tournament with a buy-in of €250 ran and attracted 64 players. Another semi-mixed event started in the afternoon, the Half & Half which was Omaha and Texas Hold’em mixed together. This €110 event attracted 113 runners, playing for almost €11,000.

During the breaks of the Main Event, the tournament organized Flip and Go tournaments for various tournament tickets, including two $1,050 High Roller tickets.

Other side events running were the Blackjack and Roulette Tournaments – both of which played their Day 2.

Tomorrow’s Program

This night the Day 1d turbo flight will finish and the players from all flights will join together to play Day 2 of the main event tomorrow at noon. The tournament is far away from the money though as the first two levels tomorrow will allow re-entries for all aficionados of start stack poker.

Other events to start tomorrow are the Open Face Chinese, the €1,050 Texas Hold’em High Roller, and the Slots Tournament which is the third and final casino tournament of The Festival.

You can follow all the action over at TheFestival.com and read up on our daily recaps here.

Day 1b of The Festival in Tallinn at Olympic Park Casino and the adjoining Hilton Tallinn Park attracted 123 players to bring the total number of entries up to 181 with two flights to go.

After 10 levels of play 48 players bagged chips with a Finnish chip leader. Lasse Laukkarinen bagged almost 200k chips and is the overall chip leader after the first two of four starting flights. He told us after the day that he felt confident playing The Festival and was happy with the level of his play during the day.

He will return on Friday with the rest of the field to play Day 2. We’re still very far away from the money ranks however as even on Day 2 the main event allows two full 45-minute levels of late registration.

Alongside Laukkarinen multiple Scandinavian and Baltic poker players bagged plenty of chips – among them the most recent Coolbet Open winner Kaido Mikk, Coolbet player Heidi Bekker and Sarunas Abdrachmanovas from Lithuania.

Those are the top 10 chip counts after Day 1b:

Name	Chips	Big Blinds
Lasse Laukkarinen	196,200	123
Tapio Aaltonen	187,100	117
Lars Viggander	150,000	94
Mats Palokangas	144,800	91
Kaido Mikk	129,600	81
Aleksi Naski	125,300	78
Heidi Bekker	124,400	78
Ronny Albrigtsen	123,200	77
Sarunas Abdrachmanovas	120,800	76
Aleksiy Baranovskiy	117,900	74

Charity Tournament and PLO High Roller

The top side events of the day were the €1,050 PLO High Roller which drew 36 entries playing for over €35,000 and the Acroud Charity Event. With €8,000 in the prize pool, the winner of the Acroud Charity Invitational would get to pick which charity receives €4,800, while the runner-up would get to decide the charitable fate of the remaining €3,200.

Those were the players in the Event:

• Karev Tralla
• Svein Olav
• Frode Fagerli
• Mauritz Altikardes
• Franke von Zweigbergk
• Ylva Thorsrud
• Ruben Grave
• Simon Brannstrum

After a long battle Casino Friday’s Frode Fagerli won the heads-up against our and Acroud’s Mauritz Altikardes.

Moving Forward

Tomorrow will see Day 1c and Day 1b of the Main Event alongside the €250 H.O.R.S.E. Side Event and the Day 2s of the Roulette and Blackjack Events which each attracted more than a dozen runners on Day 1b today.

The Main Event Day 1c will start at noon while Day 1d will start at 8 pm in the evening. Day 1d is a turbo flight with only 20-minute long levels, giving players a last-minute chance to build a stack for Day 2 of the Main Event which will be played on Friday.

You can follow all the action over at TheFestival.com and read up on our daily recaps here.

The first day of the Main Event of The Festival in Tallinn is in the books and Stefan Bittger from Germany is in the lead. The tournament recorded a total of 58 entries during Day 1a with 22 making it through the day.

Stefan Bittger bagged almost 190k chips – more than six times the starting stack and is our Day 1a chip leader with the Spaniard Juan Carlos Vecino in second place.

While Day 1a was a slow start to The Festival, we expect a much bigger turnout tomorrow with many package and seat winners arriving during the later hours today.

Top Chip Counts

Those are the top chip counts after Day 1a:

Player	Chips	Big Blinds
Stefan Bittger	188,700	118
Juan Carlos Vecino	179,500	112
Vambo Laud	161,500	101
Eric Wasylenko	156,700	98
Igor Pihela	118,300	74
Espen Sandvik	92,300	58
Arkadiusz Liszewski	90,400	57
Tihomir Yanev	89,800	56
Rando Liiber	71,700	45
Marlon Andrey Lopez Martinez	65,500	41

Blackjack and Roulette Tournaments Running

Besides the Main Event, The Festival Series had several notable events kick off in the Olympic Park Casino in Tallinn. The Blackjack Tournament started with the first starting flight and the Roulette Tournament also commenced late in the evening with 16 players in the first flight.

During the day the 8-Game tournament was running with 49 players that played for a prize pool of €4,700. Another non-Hold’em event was running at the same time, the €250 PLO Masters which attracted 63 players for a €13,608 prize pool.

Impressions from the Tournaments:

Side Activities Outside the Casino

Players could not only enjoy various poker and casino tournaments during the day, but all package holders also had the option to join a beer tour through Tallinn. The Festival is not only about poker, blackjack, or roulette. It’s also about having fun with friends and enjoying life. Today The Festival sent a few dozen players on a beer tour through Tallinn. They showed them the best breweries in Tallinn, learned about the history of Tallinn and enjoyed some rounds of beer pong.

Some Impressions from the Beer Tour:

Tomorrow Day 1b will be played with several side events kicking off as well. Among them is the PLO High Roller for €1,050, the Acroud Charity Event and the final starting flights of the Roulette and Blackjack Events.

Latvia’s Aleksejs Ponakovs won the $100,000 High Roller event of the WSOP, the most expensive tournament of the season so far and denied Phil Ivey his 11th bracelet as the American poker superstar finished second.

The $100,000 event attracted 62 entries and the total prize pool was almost $6,000,000 with the first two places taking home seven-digit figures. The field of this tournament was filled with super high roller stars including Dan Smith, Jason Koon, David Peters, Michael Addamo, Andrew Lichtenberger, Chance Kornuth, Koray Aldemir, Adrian Mateos, Stephen Chidwick, Marius Gierse, Dario Sammartino, Erik Seidel, Christoph Vogelsang and Shannon Shorr. Albeit none of the names mentioned finished in the money.

Kory Aldemir Bubbles

It was the defending Main Event champion Koray Aldemir who bubbled in 11^th place. He jammed a tiny stack from UTG with 7-6 suited and Aleksejs Ponakovs 3-bet with A-T suited. While Aldemir caught a 6 on the flop, Ponakovs spiked an Ace on the river to eliminate the German. After that, all the remaining players secured at least $162,623.

Among the players finishing the in money were Ben Heath, Talal Shakerchi, Mikita Badziakouski and Nick Petrangelo.

Phil Ivey Losses Heads-Up With a Semi-Bluff

After Ben Heath busted in third place, Phil Ivey and Aleksejs Ponakovs were the last two players remaining. The Latvian started with more chips, but Phil Ivey briefly took the lead when he called down Ponakovs’ bluff with top pair. But after a couple of hands Ponakovs regained the lead and in the end, it was a huge semi-bluff that decided the game:

Ponakovs opened from the button to 2 big blinds and Ivey reraised to 7 big blinds. Ponakov called. Flop: J 7 3 . Both players checked. After the 9 peeled off on the turn, Ivey checked again and now Ponakovs bet 7.5 big blinds. Phil Ivey in turn check-raised all-in for a bit over 27 big blinds and after one minute Ponakovs called. Ivey showed 8 6 for a straight-draw while Ponakovs held A 9 for middle pair. The river brought the 8 . That was none of Ivey’s outs and with that card the tournament was over.

After having won one bracelet during the 2021 Online WSOP (the $7,777 Lucky Sevens High Roller), Aleksejs Ponakovs now won his first live WSOP bracelet in Las Vegas. He was incredibly happy about the victory and told PokerNews that he plans on playing many more events going forward: “I’m really pleased to finally get the bracelet. There is for sure some good stuff happening right now in my head. I am getting better and better in life. I am coming for more events.”

For Phil Ivey, this was the 3^rd final table appearance during this WSOP. After finishing 7^th in the $100K Bounty event and coming 3^rd in the Stud Championship, he now was only one spot away from winning his 11^th bracelet.

WSOP Event #42: $100k High Roller Results

Place	Player	Country	Prize
1st	Aleksejs Ponakovs	Latvia	$1,897,363
2nd	Phil Ivey	United States	$1,172,659
3rd	Ben Heath	United Kingdom	$805,024
4th	Gregory Jensen	United States	$571,896
5th	Micahel Moncek	United States	$420,944
6th	Talal Shakerchi	United Kingdom	$321,437
7th	Mikita Badziakouski	Belarus	$255,001
8th	Masashi Oya	Japan	$210,485
9th	Nick Petrangelo	United States	$181,068
10th	Eric Worre	United States	$162,623

2022 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Results

Event	Entries	Prize Pool	Winner	Country	Prize
Event #1: $500 Casino Employees No-Limit Hold’em	832	$349,440	Katie Kopp	United States	$65,168
Event #2: $100,000 High Roller Bounty	46	$3,000,500	David Peters	United States	$1,166,810
Event #3: $2,500 Freezeout No-Limit Hold’em	752	$1,673,000	Scott Seiver	United States	$320,059
Event #4: $1,500 Dealer’s Choice 6-Handed	430	$574,050	Brad Ruben	United States	$126,288
Event #5: $500 Housewarming	20,080	$8,433,600	Henry Acain	United States	$701,215
Event #6: $25,000 Heads-Up No-Limit Hold’em Championship	64	$1,512,000	Dan Smith	United States	$509,717
Event #7: $1,500 Omaha Hi-Lo 8 or Better	1,086	$1,449,810	Amnon Filippi	United States	$252,718
Event #8: $25,000 High Roller No-Limit Hold’em	251	$5,929,875	Chad Eveslage	United States	$1,415,610
Event #9: $1,500 Seven Card Stud	329	$439,215	Alex Livingston	Canada	$103,282
Event #10: $10,000 Dealer’s Choice Championship	123	$1,146,975	Ben Diebold	United States	$299,488
Event #11: $600 NLH Deepstack	5,715	$2,916,650	Raj Vohra	United States	$335,886
Event #12: $50,000 High Roller No-Limit Hold’em	85	$4,069,375	Jake Schindler	United States	$1,328,068
Event #13: $1,500 Limit Hold’em	522	$696,870	Michael Moncek	United States	$145,856
Event #14: $1,500 6-Max NLH	2,392	$3,193,320	Leo Soma	France	$456,889
Event #15: $10,000 Omaha Hi-Lo Championship	196	$1,827,700	Daniel Zack	United States	$440,757
Event #16: $3,000 No Limit Hold’em	1,240	$3,310,800	Stefan Lehner	Austria	$558,616
Event #17: $2,500 Mixed Triple Draw Lowball	309	$687,525	Dominick Sarle	United States	$164,243
Event #18: $1,000 NLH Freezeout	2,663	$2,370,070	Bryan Schultz	United States	$330,057
Event #19: $25,000 PLO High Roller	264	$6,237,000	Tong Li	China	$1,467,739
Event #20: $1,500 2-7 Triple Draw	350	$467,250	Denis Nestrenko	Russia	$108,250
Event #21: $1,500 Monster Stack NLH	6,501	$8,678,835	Mike Jukich	United States	$966,577
Event #22: $10,000 Stud Championship	95	$885,875	Adam Friedman	United States	$248,254
Event #23: $3,000 6-Handed Limit Hold’em	213	$568,710	Jeremy Ausmus	United States	$142,147
Event #24: $1,000 FLIP & GO	1,329	$1,182,810	Christopher Chatman	United States	$187,770
Event #25: $800 No-Limit Hold’em Deepstack	4,062	$2,859,648	Rajaee Wazwaz	United States	$358,346
Event #26: $10,000 Limit Hold’em Championship	92	$857,900	Jonathan Cohen	United States	$245,678
Event #27: $1,500 Shootout No-Limit Hold’em	1,000	$1,335,000	Michael Simhai	United States	$240,480
Event #28: $50,000 High Roller Pot-Limit Omaha	106	$5,074,750	Robert Cowen	UK	$1,393,816
Event #29: $1,500 No-Limit 2-7 Lowball Draw	437	$583,395	Maxx Coleman	United States	$127,809
Event #30: $1,000 Pot-Limit Omaha	1,891	$1,682,990	Daniel Weinman	United States	$255,359
Event #31: $10,000 Triple Draw Championship	118	$1,100,350	Brian Hastings	United States	$292,146
Event #32: $1,500 H.O.R.S.E.	773	$1,031,955	Steven Albini	United States	$196,089
Event #33: $3,000 6-Handed No-Limit Hold’em	1,348	$3,599,160	Nino Ullmann	Germany	$594,079
Event #34: $1,500 Freezeout No-Limit Holdem	1,774	$2,368,290	Justin Pechie	United States	$365,899
Event #35: $2,500 Mixed Big Bet Event	281	$625,225	Lok Chan	Hong Kong	$144,338
Event #36: $1,500 Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo	471	$628,785	Ali Eslami	United States	$135,260
Event #37: $1,500 Millionaire Maker	7,961	$10,627,935
Event #38: $10,000 No-Limit 2-7 Lowball Championship	121	$1,128,325	Pedro Bromfman	Brazil	$294,616
Event #39: $3,000 6-Handed Pot-Limit Omaha	719	$1,919,730	Fabian Brandes	Germany	$371,358
Event #40: $10,000 Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo Championship	137	$1,277,525	Daniel Zack	United States	$324,174
Event #41: $1,000  Turbo Bounty NLH (freezeout)	2,227	$1,982,030	Ramsey Stovall	United States	$191,268
Event #42: $100,000 High Roller No-Limit Hold’em	62	$5,998,500	Aleksejs Ponakovs	Latvia	$1,897,363
Event #43: $500 Freezeout No-Limit Holdem	4,786	$2,010,120	David Perry	United States	$241,729

The Festival Series and Olympic Casino are pleased to jointly announce their upcoming collaboration with the poker payment provider Luxon Pay for the forthcoming The Festival Tallinn. The partnership will deliver a safe and convenient payment method during the event for an enhanced and effortless player experience. Players are able to buy-in to all The Festival events now using the Luxon Pay app.

“It’s exciting times for us and we believe that it will be warmly welcomed by our players. We always aim to offer the best service possible and innovative products to our customers, so we are so excited that together with Luxon Pay all our poker players can register for the festivals without leaving the comfort of their homes,” said Jaan Vaabel, Group Poker Manager and Park Casino General manager.

Olympic Entertainment Group is the leading provider of casino and leisure entertainment across nine Eurozone markets with more than 140 casinos and hotels and more than 80 sports bars, including the Hilton Tallinn Park, and the market-leading OlyBet sports betting and online brand.

“This is an exciting new step bridging live and online poker, and I’m overjoyed that together with Luxon Pay, we will deliver simplicity to register to the tournaments as well as funding casino games and cash games during the second event of The Festival Series in Tallinn,” said Martin von Zweigbergk, The Festival Series Founder and Director of Live Events at Acroud.

Luxon Pay is fast becoming the go-to payment solution for players at live poker events and is a multi-currency eWallet that enables customers to buy-in online and live poker events, instantly transfer funds to friends and family, and hold & exchange up to ten currencies. The service offers deposits via Visa, Mastercard, and many other alternative payment methods in over 120 countries. Luxon Pay is available in the Apple App Store and via Google Play, and will provide a simple payment solution for the players to deposit, withdraw and transfer money during The Festival Tallinn at the Olympic Park Casino.

“The Festival Series is one of the fastest-growing poker series in Europe, and we are delighted to be teaming up for future events starting with the Tallinn stop. Luxon Pay offers a simple and seamless solution for players to buy-in and cash out of The Festival Series tournaments, and an account takes just minutes to set up,” said Neil Barrett, Business Development Director of Luxon Pay.

Launched in September 2021 in Bratislava, The Festival Series is an innovative live event series that combines poker, casino and sports event all in one scene. The Festival is the brainchild of Cash Games Festival co-founder Martin “Franke” von Zweigbergk, who teamed up with the Swedish player in the space of iGaming Affiliation and B2B SaaS Solutions, Acroud, to revolutionize the approach to casino festivals.

The 2022 Festival Series season starts in Estonia, from 27 June to 3 July 2022. The venue chosen for the second event of the series is the flagship Olympic Park Casino, located in the center of Tallinn at Hilton Tallinn Park hotel, offering players a Vegas-like experience.

Steve O’Dwyer has done it once again. Earlier this year O’Dwyer, who has more than $34 million in live tournament earnings, shipped the Irish Poker Open. This week, he entered the final day as the chip leader in the partypoker MILLIONS Europe €3,300 Main Event at the popular Casino Barcelona before eventually mounting a comeback against Luuk Gieles heads-up to win the title.

O’Dwyer has claimed countless trophies over the years but he shared with PokerListings that this one was something special.

“I don’t have a trophy like that,” O’Dwyer shared. “I really like that it has a globe on it. I love maps and I love geography.”

Barcelona has been one of O’Dwyer’s favorite places to play. The venue is something important to O’Dwyer who no longer wants to travel to Vegas after spending many years going there as can be evidenced by the fact that he hasn’t play in the World Series of Poker for years.

“I always love playing here,” O’Dwyer said about Casino Barcelona. “It is a great place to play poker.”

O’Dwyer had a close call for another trophy earlier this festival as he was heads-up with a commanding chip lead against the formidable Teun Mulder in the partypoker MILLIONS Europe €10,300 High Roller. Mulder mounted a comeback to win the trophy in that event along with the €67,900 top prize leaving O’Dwyer to settle for the €29,100 top prize. O’Dwyer shared that he wasn’t happy with his heads-up play in that event but had a couple of days thanks to playing in the Day 1a flight to brush up on his heads-up skills and was more confident facing Gieles due to that than in his match-up against another Dutch superstar in Mulder.

2022 partypoker MILLIONS Final Table Payouts

Place	Player	Country	Prize
1	Steve O’Dwyer	Ireland	€250,000
2	Luuk Gieles	Netherlands	€168,000
3	Gergey Bartos	Hungary	€122,000
4	Taras Khilko	Ukraine	€84,000
5	Daniel Smyth	Ireland	€65,000
6	Igor Picone	Belgium	€50,000
7	Duco ten Haven	Netherlands	€38,500
8	Pawel Brzeski	Poland	€29,000
9	Jelle Moene	Netherlands	€29,000

The partypoker MILLIONS Europe Main Event attracted 450 online and live entries to generate a €1,310,350 prize pool. A total of 67 players bagged stacks into Day 2, each securing at least a min-cash of €5,000 with fourth-place finisher Taras Khilko actually bagging up twice to earn an extra €5,000 on top of the fourth-place prize of €84,000.

From One Penny to €11,000 for partypoker Qualifier Lukas Boubel

Czech Republic’s Lukas Boubel qualified for the partypoker MILLIONS Europe Main Event at partypoker for just $0.01. He was living the dream by coming to Barcelona, but unfortunately for him, he just busted out in 18th place for €11,000 after his big slick ran into aces.

Boubel came to the Catalonian capital with his girlfriend and truly took in the experience as someone that typically plays low stakes. He shared with PokerListings that although he is disappointed that he didn’t go deeper with what he described as two mistakes because he was tired, after a quick break he relished in the fact that this was his biggest poker tournament cash.

“I was so excited to be playing with those I watch on TV like Steve O’Dwyer,” said Boubel.

Hopefully, for Boubel, this is the start of something big for the friendly player who exhibited strong play throughout the Main Event.

Final Day Action

The penultimate day of the Main Event concluded after O’Dwyer ousted partypoker Team Online streamer Matt Staples in 10th place when his ace-queen held against ace-four suited. O’Dwyer began the day with a small lead over Gergely Bartos but it wasn’t all smooth sailing for the Irishman.

Bartos took the chip lead after O’Dwyer was on the losing end of the first hand to Daniel Smyth. Shortly after Smyth snagged the lead back. O’Dwyer, however, was back on top after he ousted Jelle Moene in ninth place. O’Dwyer extended his chip lead as others did the dirty work in eliminating both Duco ten Haven and Pawel Brzeski.

O’Dwyer appeared to be in cruise control as he was busy padding his chip lead until he doubled Bartos in a massive pot when his ace-queen didn’t get there against queens.

Bartos appeared to be the one in control at that point having padded his lead before sending Igor Picone to the rail when his fives were good against ace-trey suited. However, shortly after Taras Khilko send Smyth to the rail in fifth place, O’Dwyer was able to regain the lead once again during four-handed play. The lead then bounced around to Gieles before Bartos took control again. Gieles regained the lead before O’Dwyer was once again the table captain.

Bartos then delivered a bad beat to Gieles. A Cinderella story was in the making with Gieles down to under 3 big blinds at this point before he came storming back with two double-ups against O’Dwyer in flip situations. Shortly after, Gieles sent Khilko to the showers in fourth place and regained the lead after holding figuratively a chip and a chair. Bartos then ran his ace-five suited into Gieles’s pocket rockets to hit the rail in third place and Gieles held double the stack of O’Dwyer to begin heads-up play.

Gieles shared with PokerListings before the day began how special it would be to win the trophy for him. The Dutch poker player is a seasoned pro who was witnessed regularly playing $10,000 buy-in events online during the pandemic and had a great support team with him including High Roller champ Mulder and fellow final tablist Moene.

However, by the time the dinner break came around, O’Dwyer had a small chip lead despite Gieles winning one memorable hand with quad treys, and the tournament was soon over once the action resumed.

Before long, O’Dwyer amassed a massive chip lead against Gieles before the final hand took place.

It appeared like the game would go on with Gieles back into things after he nailed two pair with king-four suited against O’Dwyer’s ace-ten with the duo all in before Gieles nailed two pair on the king-four-nine landed on the flop. However, this wasn’t meant to be as an ace came on the turn to give O’Dwyer the top pair before a nine paired the board on the river to give O’Dwyer a better two pair.

Although Gieles was unable to hoist the trophy, he did win a truck-load of cash to collect the second-place prize of €168,000.

Congrats to Steve O’Dwyer for adding yet another big trophy to his ever-growing collection. That’s a wrap for the PokerListings coverage of the 2022 partypoker MILLIONS Europe. Stay tuned as we cover other big poker festivals around the world.

*Photos courtesy of partypoker photographer Mickey May

It was a heads-up battle of the titans in the partypoker MILLIONS Europe €10,300 High Roller with Teun Mulder coming out on top after defeating Stephen O’Dwyer heads-up to win the €67,900 top prize at Casino Barcelona.

Mulder began the live-streamed final table with the chip lead. He coughed it up briefly to Vincent Cavailles before zooming along with a huge chip advantage during most of the final table. O’Dwyer wasn’t far behind by the time heads-up play began and eventually took a commanding lead. Mulder came storming back to claim yet another huge title and, of course, the coveted trophy.

The High Roller was a two-day, family-style affair with 10 runners generating a €97,000 prize pool with the top two spots making the money.

2022 partypoker MILLIONS Europe Payouts

Place	Player	Country	Prize
1	Teun Mulder	Netherlands	€ 67,900
2	Stephen O’Dwyer	Ireland	€ 29,100

Mulder’s Road to the Title

The opening day of the High Roller attracted five entries in Mulder, Cavailles, Jelle Moene, Luuk Gieles, and Estonian chess grandmaster Ottomar Ladva. Ladva was the only one not to make it through to Day 2 after he suffered a bad beat with his cowboys failing to hold against Cavailles’ tens.

The second Day attracted five more entries, including two by O’Dwyer, who was busy yesterday bagging up a nice stack for the Main Event. Also joining the action were Gergely Kulcsar, Imad Derwiche, and partypoker MILLIONS Europe Main Event Day 1a chip leader Vitalijs Korhs.

Moene, Gieles, and Derwiche were all on the rail before late registration closed and the official televised final table began at the partypokerTV Twitch and YouTube channels. Meanwhile, O’Dwyer hit the rail just before the end of the late-registration window but had better luck with his second bullet.

Korhs was the first player out at the t.v. table in sixth place when he lost a flip with treys against Mulder’s ace-jack suited. Although Mulder extended his lead at the time, that was short-lived. Cavailles won a big pot off Mulder and shortly after took the lead by default when O’Dwyer doubled through Mulder.

Despite losing some momentum, Mulder remained composed and snagged the lead back a couple of hands later. O’Dwyer then ousted a short-stacked Moene when his ace-ten held against king-jack. Mulder then eliminated Cavailles when his jacks held against ace-eight suited to have about 70% of the chips in play with three players remaining.

O’Dwyer then sent the short-stacked Kulcsar out on the bubble when his king-three proved to be good against jack-seven suited but Mulder still had a small chip advantage when heads-up action began. He then extended his lead to a 3:1 advantage before Mulder came storming back to take a small chip lead just before the final hand took place.

Mulder flopped a wheel with ace-trey, while O’Dwyer flopped top pair with queen-five. Aces came on both the turn and river and Mulder check-jammed the river. O’Dwyer tanked before he eventually called and had to settle for the runner-up prize of €29,100.

Congrats to Teun Mulder for yet another big title to add to his ever-growing collection!

_{*Photos courtesy Mickey May / partypoker}