Rettenmaier Scores WPT Back-to-Back with Cyprus Win
With the win, Rettenmaier joins a select group of players with multiple WPT titles, although none had ever won them in successive events. Fourteen different players have two WPT titles currently, with Gus Hansen and Carlos Mortensen the only players with three.
Less than three months after closing out Season X of the World Poker Tour with a victory in the $25,000 WPT World Championship in Las Vegas, Marvin Rettenmaier made history on Thursday by winning the Season XI opener, the WPT Merit Cyprus Classic. Rettenmaier topped a field of 329 at the Merit Crystal Clove Hotel and Casino to become the first player in WPT history to earn back-to-back titles, earning $287,784.
It was a dominating final table performance by Rettenmaier, a.k.a. "The Mad One." The 25-year-old German entered the fifth and final day of play in third position among the final six, but once he assumed the chip lead he would never relinquish it, ultimately knocking out all five of the remaining competitors to assume the title.
It took a while before the first final table elimination occurred, coming not long after Kiryl Radzivonau of Belarus committed his short stack with Jd-10s only to run into the Qc-Qd of Rettenmaier. Radzivonau managed to flop a ten, but a queen also appeared among the community cards, and Rettenmaier's set would be sufficient to knock Radzivonau out in sixth.
The remaining five battled for some time longer, during which stretch Rettenmaier built his stack up over 4 million to claim nearly half the chips in play. That's when Joseph El Khoury open-raised all in for 1.225 million from the cutoff with Ac-2s and got a single caller in Rettenmaier playing from the blinds with Ah-Qc. The community cards came 4c-8h-6c-3h-8d, and they were down to four.
About 15 minutes after that Rettenmaier opened with a minimum-raise to 240,000 from under the gun and it folded around to Victor Paraschiv in the big blind who reraised all in for around 2 million. Rettenmaier quickly called, tabling Ks-Kd while Paraschiv had but Kc-5c. The board rolled out 4c-Qd-10s-5h-Jd, and the Romanian Paraschiv was out in fourth.
It wouldn't take much longer to settle things, as Rettenmaier had more than 7.3 million while his two remaining opponents, Ran Azor and Artur Voskanyan, were both sitting with less than 1.5 million.
First it was Azor of Tel Aviv, Israel challenging Rettenmaier with 7c-7d versus the latter's Qs-9c. Azor remained tenuously ahead after the Jd-10c-6s flop and 5c turn. But the Qc fell on the river to pair Rettenmaier, and Azor was out in third.
Just two hands later, Rettenmaier was open-shoving from the button with Jd-9d and Voskanyan called with Ac-10h. The flop came 9c-8s-4h to pair Rettenmaier's nine and snatch the lead away from the Russian. The turn was the Qh and river the 7d, and Rettenmaier had won.
2012 WPT Merit Cyprus Classic final table payouts:
1. Marvin Rettenmaier -- $287,784
2. Artur Voskanyan -- $184,020
3. Ran Azor -- $118,360
4. Victor Paraschiv -- $87,610
5. Joseph El Khoury -- $65,770
6. Kiryl Radzivonau -- $52,590
Others making deep runs in this inaugural event of the World Poker Tour's 11th season were Erik Cajelais (7th, $43,690), Sam El Sayed (11th, $19,110), Robert Mizrachi (15th, $15,670), Per Ummer (21st, $11,750), David "Chino" Rheem (22nd, $10,450), and Dominik Nitsche (30th, $8,070).
As mentioned, Rettenmaier also won the final event of WPT Season X when he bested an especially tough 152-player field to earn a cool $1,196,858 payday at the WPT World Championship at the Bellagio.
The intervening period wasn't too bad for Rettenmaier, either, as he managed to cash six times at this summer's WSOP, including making it to the quarterfinals of Event #6, the $5,000 no-limit hold'em "mix-max" event eventually won by Aubin Cazals.
With the win, Rettenmaier joins a select group of players with multiple WPT titles, although none had ever won them in successive events. Fourteen different players have two WPT titles currently, with Gus Hansen and Carlos Mortensen the only players with three.
Rettenmaier had already secured a place inside the top 10 in the Global Poker Index, moving into seventh-place in the current rankings, and his finish in Cyprus will surely improve his status.
Jason Mercier remains atop the list of the world's top tournament poker players (Once owned by Federated Sports & Gaming, the parent company of the failed Epic Poker League, the GPI was sold to Pinnacle Entertainment in June and was recently purchased by Zokay Entertainment who now operate the rankings.)
The World Poker Tour next moves to the U.S. for the WPT Parx Open Poker Classic in Bensalem, Pennsylvania (August 10-15) and the Legends of Poker event at the Bicycle Casino in Bell Gardens, California (August 24-29).
Prices quoted in copy are correct at time of publication but liable to change.
