German online and live tournament poker ace Martin Finger has added another trinket to his bulging trophy cabinet – along with the first prize of Euro 865,900 – after taking down the Euro 25,000 buy-in European Poker Tour High Roller event in Barcelona.
Although originally scheduled for just one day the event attracted so much talented interest, generating a prize pool of Euro 3,724,000, that it stretched out for the best part of two days before a winner was crowned.
The final three survivors, Finger, and UK players Mark Teltscher and Liv Boeree used the extra day to battle for the main prize, but Boeree had to be content with a third placing pay check for Euro 391,000 when she was eliminated by Teltscher.
That set up the heads up between Teltscher and Finger, with the players holding similar chip stacks. Teltscher’s suggestion of a chop was rejected by his confident German opponent, and the final phase of play commenced.
Finger may have had a moment’s regret regarding the chop proposal, because Teltscher managed to get an early advantage, but it all came right following a big all-in hand and from then on Finger steadily built up his chip count until he held a 2 to 1 lead and leveraged the advantage to send the UK player to the exit and a runner up reward of Euro 586,500.
The big win boosts Finger’s career live tournament earnings to over $6 million.
Other final table pay days included:
Jani Sointula of Finland Euro 320,300
Mike McDonald from Canada Euro 257,000
Isaac Haxton from the USA Euro 199,200
Jeff Rossiter of Australia Euro 147,500
Iacopo Brandi from Italy Euro 108,400