Nitsche Leads Last Eight in Star-Studded Final Table Line-Up of the €100,000 King's Super High Roller
The final table in the most expensive tournament of the 2018 World Series of Poker Europe is set and a familiar face can be found at the top of the leaderboard with eight players remaining in Event #9: €100,000 No-Limit Hold'em King's Super High Roller. One year ago, Dominik Nitsche won his fourth WSOP bracelet at Europe's biggest poker arena in the King's Casino in Rozvadov, and the German High Roller regular leads the last eight hopefuls into the final day.
“I was aiming for 100k!” joked Nitsche after bagging and tagging for the night. “I wanted to be able to finish early tomorrow and play the Main Event. I just ran extremely hot; lots of good plays, a couple of bad plays that thankfully didn’t hurt me too much."
Nitsche says that he considers Mikita Badziakouski the toughest player remaining in the Super High Roller, and said he’d love to get him heads-up.
“Just because of his background. We’ve played a lot online together so I was saying at the table that I hope we get heads-up because I think he’s an amazing player, and it would definitely make for the most intricate heads-up for a while.”
After an already impressive day with 76 entries, Day 2 kicked off with 33 players remaining and the registration and re-entry period remained open for another two levels. A flurry of eliminations and re-entries boosted the field up to 95 entries and that generated a massive prize pool of €9,025,000, which Nitsche admits are a great accomplishment and perfect opportunity for professional poker players.
“It’s a fantastic 100k,” said Nitsche. “Leon [Tsoukernik] did a great job in getting all of these players in. And what that means for me as a pro … there’s no secret that there’s action being sold. And it’s also no secret that in a field full of recreational players I’m going to have a much bigger piece of myself."
Nitsche already has four bracelets to his name and joked on social media that he is running very good at the King's Casino. Just two days ago, the German finished 5th in the €25,500 Super High Roller - on one bullet, and is now already secured an even bigger payday once more. However, there is much more at stake with the coveted gold bracelet and High Roller glory up for grabs.
“What will it mean to me [to win]? A huge payday – and that’s great! Another bracelet, and that’s also great. It’s ridiculous how good I run at the WSOP and at King’s, and with both combined it’s like I can’t be stopped here. So it would mean a lot to me.”
While Nitsche bagged up a comfortable lead with 53,125,000, he is facing tough competition on his road to a possible fifth WSOP bracelet. Aforementioned Badziakouski sits in second place with 32,200,000 and Martin Kabrhel completes the overnight podium with 24,675,000. Jan-Eric Schwippert (23,100,000) and Julian Thomas (19,925,000) will also aim to continue the tradition of German High Roller wins, while David Peters (15,275,000), Michael Addamo (12,450,000) and Adrian Mateos (10,225,000) can add another WSOP bracelet to their resume.
The action is set to resume at 3 p.m. local time with 55:40 minutes left at blinds of 250,000/500,000 with a big blind ante of 500,000. Cards-up coverage on the PokerRoomKings Twitch channel will take place on a security delay of 30 minutes and the PokerNews live updates will be published accordingly.
Tobias Ziegler ended up as the bubble boy and among the seven players to finish in the money but missing out on a spot of the final table were Steffen Sontheimer, Richard Yong, Steve O'Dwyer, Vladimir Troyanovskiy, Orpen Kisacikoglu, Christoph Vogelsang and Timothy Adams.
Event #9: €100,000 King's Super High Roller Final Table Seat Assignments
| Seat | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Martin Kabrhel | Czech Republic | 24,675,000 | 49 |
| 2 | Julian Thomas | Germany | 19,925,000 | 40 |
| 3 | Dominik Nitsche | Germany | 53,125,000 | 106 |
| 4 | Michael Addamo | Australia | 12,450,000 | 25 |
| 5 | Mikita Badziakouski | Belarus | 32,200,000 | 64 |
| 6 | Adrian Mateos | Spain | 10,225,000 | 20 |
| 7 | David Peters | United States | 15,275,000 | 30 |
| 8 | Jan-Eric Schwippert | Germany | 22,100,000 | 46 |
Action of the Day
When the cards went back in the air, 33 players out of 76 entries remained and the registration and re-entry period remained open for the first two levels and the following break. New additions to the field included such familiar names as Tony G, Ben Lamb, James Romero, Alex Foxen and Benjamin Pollak. Ivan Leow entered the penultimate day with an above-average stack, but subsequently re-entered three times before the registration closed.
Kristen Bicknell, Fedor Holz and Alexey Rybin also gave it another shot, but all busted prior to the money spots. Holz put his hopes on jack-ten suited for flopped top pair, but the nutflushdraw of Orpen Kisacikoglu hit right away on the turn to leave Holz drawing dead. Bicknell lost a flip with pocket jacks against the ace-queen of Vladimir Troyanovskiy and exited before the three-table redraw.
The hot run of Dominik Nitsche on the feature table kicked off when he rivered a flush with ten-four suited against the ace-ten suited of Paul Phua and from there on, the German continued to build his stack further. In the meanwhile, fellow countrymen Stefan Schillhabel, Koray Aldemir and Johannes Becker were all ousted. Joao Vieira then ran with pocket tens into the pocket queens of Nitsche, who flopped a set for good measure.
Manig Loeser ran with ace-king into the pocket aces of Julian Thomas and the money bubble on the final two tables was set after Igor Kurganov ended up second-best with pocket kings against the pocket aces of David Peters. Just before the dinner break and in the second hand of the bubble, Tobias Ziegler called the shove of Christoph Vogelsang in a battle of the blinds with pocket deuces and lost the flip versus ace-nine to let the bubble burst.
The first to go after the money bubble was Steffen Sontheimer on the outer table, and Richard Yong failed to hold up on the feature table. Steve O'Dwyer departed from the outer table after he three-bet out of the big blind with pocket kings and called the shove of Jan-Eric Schwippert on a nine-high flop. Schwippert only held ace-nine suited for top pair, but spiked an ace on the turn.
In the €25,500 Super High Roller, Vladimir Troyanovskiy busted with ace-king versus kings despite flopping an ace and this time he failed to hold up with kings against the ace-king of steam-rolling Nitsche. it would't take lone to set up the unofficial final table after, as Orpen Kisacikoglu and Christoph Vogelsang departed in quick succession. The former lost a flip with pocket fives against the ace-queen of Nitsche and Vogelsang's king-queen suited failed to connect with the board when facing the ace-ten of Mikita Badziakouski.
One further High Roller had to go before bagging and tagging, and that happened to be Timothy Adams. While almost all things went his way on Day 1 and early on Day 2, Adams had plummeted to just eight big blinds and got it in with pocket nines. Martin Kabrhel had an easy call with pocket aces and that reduced the field to the final eight.
The final day shapes up to be a highlight for poker fans with big names in contention for the gold bracelet and first-place payout of €2,624,340. Tune back in on Sunday, October 28th, 2018, to find out who will be crowned the champion!