Boris Kuzmanovic Wins the �2,200 High Roller in Rozvadov
The 2017 PokerStars Festival Rozvadov has crowned it's champion in the 118-entry strong �2,200 High Roller and Boris Kuzmanovic emerged victorious in heads-up against Aviv Meiri and claimed a payday of �37,791 as well as the elusive golden trophy in the poker arena of the King's Casino.
Down to the last three players, Kuzmanovic and Meiri cut a deal with 2016 EPT Barcelona Main Event champion Sebastian Malec, in which �3,000 were left to be played for, and the 29-year old poker pro and cash game player from Zagreb was the last man standing at just after 1 a.m. local time. Kuzmanovic already came close to a title in the predecessor series of the PokerStars Festival, the Eureka Poker Tour, when finishing runner-up to Achilles Bozso in the Eureka3 Dubrovnik Main Event in 2013.
Result of the Final Table
| Place | Winner | Country | Prize (EUR) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Boris Kuzmanovic | Croatia | 37,791* |
| 2 | Aviv Meiri | Israel | 36,428* |
| 3 | Sebastian Malec | Poland | 37,637* |
| 4 | Anestis Anagnostidis | Greece | 20,914 |
| 5 | Michael Uguccioni | Italy | 15,863 |
| 6 | Pietro Errante Parrino | Italy | 12,032 |
| 7 | Robert Zipf | Germany | 9,126 |
| 8 | Zoltan Ban | Czech Republic | 6,922 |
The final day saw 29 players return to the tables and just 20 of them made the money. In one of the first hands, Michael Uguccioni almost mucked his winning hand in an all-in showdown and walked away from the table for a while to regain composure.
Among those to run out of chips with nothing to show for were [Removed:197] and �5,300 King's High Roller runner-up Eugene Katchalov before the money bubble then burst in spectacular fashion.
There was an all in on each of the three remaining tables and two of them went into showdown. Jean Paul Zaffran three-bet shoved with pocket eights out of the blinds and initial raiser Guccioni isolated with pocket nines to eliminate Zaffran.
While David Urban folded to the shove of Malec over on table two, Santosh Srinivas was awaiting his fate on table three. Zoltan Ban had called the shove of the player from India with king-queen and Srinivas had a flip with pocket eights. A king appeared on the flop and the bubble burst.
Oren Rosen and Leonardo Mancuso were eliminated at almost the same time on different tables and PokerStars Team Online Pro Randy Lew also had to settle for a min-cash as well.
Lew three-bet shoved with pocket threes and Ban called with pocket fives. There was no help on the board and Lew was gone in 18th place for �3,437. Stefan Schulze, Phillipp Teipel and Mirko Willsch, three Germans, were sent to the rail in a row and the field was reduced to the last 14 hopefuls.
Start-of-day chip leader Daniil Kiselev was unable to keep the momentum going and shoved his short stack in with jack-ten suited. Ban called with king-jack suited and a jack on the flop was followed by a king on the turn. Antoine Vranken and Paul Skipper were next to fall, before Ban also claimed the remaining chips of Martin Bartos with pocket jacks versus ace-three.
Until then, things were running extremely well for Ban, but that quickly changed when Anestis Anagnostidis and Sebastian Malec doubled through the Czech. Over on the other table, Boris Kuzanovic dominated the action and the Croatian busted Dorin Rauta and David Urban in the same hand.
Rauta shoved for just over three big blinds with ace-six and Kuzmanovic called with deuces on the button. Urban reshoved with ace-jack suited in the small blind and Kuzmanic called, then spiked a deuce on the flop and dodged the straight and flush draw of both opponents.
That double elimination set up the eight-handed final table with Kuzmanovic in the lead:
| Seat | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Robert Zipf | Germany | 208,000 | 10 |
| 2 | Pietro Errante Parrino | Italy | 255,000 | 12 |
| 3 | Aviv Meiri | Israel | 335,000 | 16 |
| 4 | Anestis Anagnostidis | Greece | 256,000 | 12 |
| 5 | Zoltan Ban | Czech Republic | 176,000 | 9 |
| 6 | Sebastian Malec | Poland | 793,000 | 39 |
| 7 | Michael Uguccioni | Italy | 467,000 | 23 |
| 8 | Boris Kuzmanovic | Croatia | 1,055,000 | 52 |
The first casualty of the final table was Ban, who was blinded out the same day in the PokerStars Cup and finished 77th. Ban also grabbed one of the spade trophies during the festival by taking down the Stars Fun Side Event. The Czech got it in with ace-jack suited only to see Anestis Anagnostidis look him up with ace-king suited. A king-high board left Ban drawing dead on the turn.
Next to fall was the last remaining German in the field. Robert Zipf was reduced to less than two big blinds and his shove was called by Anestis Anagnostidis and Sebastian Malec. The latter bet the river of a ten-high board with five-four and bested the queen-nine of Zipf thanks to a five on the river.
Pietro Errante Parrino, who was one of three players eliminated on the bubble of the �1,100 Main Event to split the minimum payout, had to settle for sixth place. Parrino shoved short with king-six suited and Sebastian Malec called with ace-seven suited. The ace was good enough to claim the pot.
Parrino's countryman Michael Uguccioni followed soon after when his ace-ten failed to improve against the ace-jack of Aviv Meiri. Down to the last four, Anestis Anagnostidis was the shortest stack and managed to double once before falling back to the bottom of the counts again. Anagnostidis got it in with ace-king offsuit and Aviv Meiri looked him up with ace-ten of spades. By the turn, there were three spades on the board and the Greek was gone in fourth.
The final three players looked into ICM numbers and agreed to a deal within a few minutes, leaving �3,000 and the trophy up for grabs. While Sebastian Malec had the most chips when the deal was struck, he was the next to fall.
Malec three-bet shoved with queen-jack off and Boris Kuzmanovic quickly called with ace-king. After a jack on the flop, a king on the turn and an ace on the river, the better hand kept the lead preflop and Kuzmanovic entered heads-up play with a decent lead over Meiri.
The lead changed several times and Aviv Meiri got short, then doubled up only to run out of chips a few minutes later. Kuzmanovic raised and called the shove of his opponent for seven big blinds with pocket jacks. Meiri, a businessman from Israel, had a flip with ace-queen but the board ran out jack-high to crown a champion.
That marks the end of the PokerNews live reporting from the High Roller event, but you can still check out the updates of the record-breaking Main Event by clicking this link.