WSOP Europe / Dave Allan / 02 October 2009 / Leave a comment

After an epic 17 hour battle, which finished as the sun came up this morning in London, Barry Shulman won the World Series of Poker Europe Main Event after defeating Daniel Negreanu in the heads up stages. Shulman wins the coveted WSOPE bracelet and £801,603 for his efforts in a final with was jam-packed full of incident and excitement.

As play got underway all the talk was of James Akenhead and Antoine Saout. Both players are due to take their seats in the WSOP "November Nine" final later this year and both stood a very real chance of double bracelet glory. The fairytale story wasn't to be for Akenhead or Saout as they were eliminated in 9th and 7th respectively.

As the famous names fell the prize money got bigger with all the sights set on the £800k for first place. Chris Bjorin was quick to follow Saout in 6th place for £150,267 and, at that stage, it looked like we were in for a quick end to proceedings. Markus Ristola was the next to exit in 5th place but then the grind began. Hours passed as the chip lead was exchanged between Bansi, Negreanu, Shulman and Mercier. Eventually Jason Mercier's tournament came to an end after he ran his 7,7 into the bigger pocket pair of 9,9 held by Daniel Negreanu.

Praz Bansi was amongst the chip leaders in this tournament from the start. After a superbly consistent tournament few will begrudge the local professional his 3rd place and £360,887 prize money. Then there were two. A tired looking two at that! Negreanu and Shulman were arguably the two biggest names in the final and it seemed fitting that they were the players battling it out for the title. After a cagey start Barry Shulman began to edge his way into the game and after an hour he overturned a chip deficit to take the lead. Then the final hand played out like this:

Shulman: Ts,Tc
Negreanu: 4s,4d
Flop: Td,2c,Kd
Turn: 3c
River: Qd

The crowd erupted and even Daniel Negreanu's fans applauded a super display of poker by Barry Shulman. Negreanu took the defeat well but, of course, looked dejected to finish in second place after such a gruelling encounter. The Canadian can take some comfort in his result here as that moved him into first place in the "All time poker money list".

Congratulations to Barry Shulman the 2009 WSOPE champion.

Final table payouts were as follows:

1 - £801,603 Barry Shulman
2 - £495,589 Daniel Negreanu
3 - £360,887 Praz Bansi
4 - £267,267 Jason Mercier
5 - £200,367 Markus Ristola
6 - £150,267 Chris Bjorin
7 - £114,228 Antoine Saout
8 - £87,074 Matt Hawrilenko
9 - £66,533 James Akenhead