Betfair Poker LIVE! Tallinn Review

Poker News / Editor / 14 April 2010 / Leave a Comment

Betfair Poker LIVE! Tallinn - Another great event!

With players settling back at their homes after a memorable weekend in Estonia, I feel it is time for a mini-review of how everything went. To kick start the festivities, a tour of beautiful Tallinn was organized and Betfair Poker players had the opportunity to see what the great town had to offer.

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Stops at the famous park Kadriorg, the coast of Tallinn, Pirita Center and the Song Festival Grounds were done and everybody had a good time. Our guests then arrived back at the Casino in time for the start of the Main Event. Diversity was truly present in the tournament as players from Finland, Russia, Ukraine, France, United Kingdom, Bulgaria, Croatia and even Hong Kong made up the 167 entries!

The Prize Pool of €87,500 was looking quite attractive and as soon as play started at 18:00 local time, excitement levels went up faster than one could imagine! BF Bounty, otherwize known as famous local singer Indrek, barely had time to warm his seat thanks to some great play from Dmitry Melikh. For his efforts, Dmitry will be going to Betfair Poker LIVE! Ibiza in a few weeks time for free!

Next on the agenda was an epic (and unlucky) hand which resulted in forum-favourite Dinos (The Klup) being shown the exit door. After some interesting play, the River brought a Queen-high flush to Dinos but unknown to him, Roman Shaposhnikov made an Ace-high flush and with all the chips going in the middle, the Russian doubled up!

After long hours of action, just 62 remained with Betfair Poker player Slaven Popov a clear chip leader over the rest of the field. Day 2 was just as exciting and surprisingly enough; players were dropping like flies! Unlike most other tournaments, there was no need to play "hand by hand" to reach the Final Table as Roman Shaposhnikov and David Almstrom were eliminated simultaneously in 10th and 9th place.

The "fearsome four" lived up to their expectations as Slaven Popov, Wtodzimierz Kaiser, Lari Sihvo and Kare Kaukomaa made up half of the Final Table with Lari ending Day 2 a clear leader with 443,000 in chips and Wtodzimierz in 8th place with 44,000.

Sunday morning brought sad news of the death of Poland's President and more than a 100 other people due to a tragic plane crash. A minute's silence was observed before the start of the Final Table and everyone can be proud of their action in respecting the sad turn of events.When play started, the big stacks showed their dominance as Wtodzimierz Kaiser (8th place and €2,869), Ekaterina Rimskaya-Korsakova (7th place and €3,246) and Ilya Nikiforov (6th place and €3,624) quickly stood up and left the action. Cunning play by Dmitri Gerasimovits ensured he got paid off well by Lari Sihvo after slow-rolling a straight and taking a huge percentage of his chips.

Lari just couldn't recover and was next to head for the rails but not before a good round of applause and €4,300 for his efforts. Kaukomaa then started taking control of the table by virtually raising every hand and winning several all in situations. However, it wasn't to be as he lost everything in just 2 hands and walked away in a respectable 4th place and €6,492 in his account!

Possibly being a contender for "player of the tournament", Krzysztof Zajac took down the largest pot of the tournament at the time after winning a race by shoving AK against JJ and spiking top pair, to the detriment of Dmitri. The Estonian found this too hard a blow to recover from and a few hands later had his pre-flop all in called by Slaven Popov showing AJ. Gerasimovits huffed as he turned over 10, 9 suited and a final board of 3-3-Jack-9-Ace sealed his fate and finished in third place. As Slaven counted his chips with a smile, Dmitri was at least looking at a payday of €9,890..

Before starting the Heads Up stage of the tournament, both Slaven and Krzysztof decided to split the money equally and played for an extra €2,000 that was left. Unlike John Juanda's record-breaking Heads Up during the 2008's WSOPE, this match was over pretty quickly as Slaven's pre-flop all in with K-3 was insta-called by an excited Krzysztof holding a pair of Eight's.

Slaven was looking good as the flop consisted of 6-2-K but an 8 on the Turn and no help on the River meant that the player from Poland was deservedly crowned Champion of Betfair Poker LIVE! Tallinn 2010 and took home €18,061!

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