22-year-old Dominik Panka from Brześć Kujawski in Poland continued his winning streak at the weekend, using some of his $1.4 million in spoils from his victory last month at the Pokerstars Caribbean Adventure to finance a Euro 10,000 buy-in for the High Roller event at EPT Deauville – and again emerging the winner.
In the space of just over two weeks, the young Pole has amassed almost $1.8 million…and $10,000 worth of Swiss winner watches.
95 other hopefuls registered for the Deauville High Roller, and there were 19 re-ups, generating a total prize pool of Euro 1.1 million.
Battling through the field, Panka arrived at the final table around the middle of the surviving field, facing Lebanon’s Albert Daher – the chip leader on 1,300,000; Martin Schleich of Germany (762,000); Ondrej Vinklarek from the Czech Republic (737,000); Belgium’s Davidi Kitai (733,000); Kent Lundmark from Sweden (665,000); Nikolay Losev of Russia (523,000); and Spaniard Adrian Mateos Diaz (363,000).
It took just six hours, including the short heads up confrontation between Panka and Albert Daher, to complete the final table, with Panka adding another Euro 272,000…and another Swiss watch … to his winnings for the first place finish, and Daher claiming the runner up prize of Euro 189,000.
Panka’s triumph is all the more impressive when viewed with the fact that four former EPT champions were among his opponents on the final table, along with World Series of Poker Europe main event winner Adrian Mateos Diaz, EPT Season 8 Player of the Year Ondrej Vinklarek.
Other final table payouts included:
3. Kent Lundmark Euro 122,000
4. Ondrej Vinklarek Euro 101,000
5. Martin Schleich Euro 81,500
6. Davidi Kitai Euro 64,200
7. Nikolay Losev Euro 49,100
8. Adrian Mateos Diaz Euro 37,000