Spanish poker pro Javier Gomez is the winner of this years’ World Poker Tour Prague Main Event title, claiming Euro175,000 and a $15,400 seat into the WPT Tournament of Champions after a torrid four-hour heads up battle over 138 hands with Moldova’s Pavel Plesuv.
Fahredin Mustafov of Bulgaria, who has started the final day’s action as chip leader, fell on hard cards and only managed a third placing for Euro 77,500.
The action moved at a cracking pace after the first three eliminations on the final table, taking only 74 hands to reach the heads up stage.
Entering the heads up with a chip lead just short of five times that of his last opponent, Gomez looked like a cert for an early victory, but Plesuv fought back determinedly, taking a number of small pots and finally managing to snatch the lead from Gomez.
That started a protracted battle in which the lead changed several times before Gomez could finally establish supremacy by winning three consecutive high value pots to secure the game, sending a talented opponent home with the runner-up prize of Euro 120,000.
The other final table cashes looked like this:
Pedro Marques (Portugal) Euro 57,400
Abdelkader Benhalima (Algeria) Euro 43,000
Henrik Hecklen (Denmark) Euro 34,100
Pavel Veksler (Israel) Euro 28,200
Sergio Aido (Spain) Euro 22,500
Pavel Savin (Russia) Euro 17,000
In related news the Eureka Prague tournament has again broken its record for registrations in its Euro 1,100 buy-in main event. 1893 entries had been recorded up to the close of registrations on Day 1B and Portugal’s Manuel Fernandes heads the field going into Day 2 of the competition.