EPT Barcelona: PokerStrategist Martin Schleich Wins!
The 2011 PokerStars EPT Barcelona has come to a close, and PokerStrategist Martin Schleich has been crowned champion. Through 5 days of play, Schleich maintained intense focus and will take home €850,000 for his efforts.
 |
| EPT Champion Martin Schleich |
811 players entered. 1 German PokerStrategist is left standing.
PokerStrategy.com Black Member Martin Schleich is the 2011 PokerStars EPT Barcelona Champion! Congratulations Martin!
Today's final table began with 8 players ready to compete for a first prize of €850,000. Most of them ended up finishing the tournament quite differently than how they started the day. In fact, the top 3 finishers all began with less than an average stack.
Eugene Katchalov was the biggest story for most of the day. He entered the final table with the biggest reputation and the fewest chips, and managed to climb to the chip lead by the time the table was short-handed.
Dragan Kostic entered the day in 6th place and with minimal tournament experience, but like Katchalov he managed to grab a mountain of chips as the day progressed.
Eventual champion Martin Schleich began the day in 5th place with 2,260,000 chips, and he played extremely well all day to slowly chip up and reach what would turn out to be an epic 3-handed battle.
3-Handed Play
The big story of this final table was that when the tournament reached 3-handed, all 3 players had similar stacks and fought for what seemed like forever before anyone was crippled.
Play between Martin Schleich, Dragan Kostic, and Eugene Katchalov lasted over 4 hours. Each of them had the chip lead at different points of the night, but eventually Katchalov hit the rail when he ran 
into the 
of Martin Schleich. Both men hit a set on the flop but Katchalov couldn't hit the case 7, and Schleich entered heads up with about a 2:1 chip lead.
Heads up play went quite a bit smoother than 3-handed did, and it took just a few hands for Schleich to methodically build his lead.
On the final hand of the night, Schleich opened from the button. Kostic went all-in and Schleich called with 
, dominating the 
that Kostic showed. The board ran 
, and the tournament was over!
Huge congratulations are in order to PokerStrategy.com Black Member AND EPT Barcelona Champion Martin Schleich!
Congratulations Philipp Gruissem!
While Martin was winning the Main Event, another PokerStrategist was off winning a side event.
Philipp Gruissem won a €10K buy-in for €234,500! Congratulations!
PokerStars EPT Barcelona Final Table Results
|
||||
| Place | Name | Prize | ||
| 1st | Martin Schleich | €850,000 | ||
| 2nd | Dragan Kostic | €532,000 | ||
| 3rd | Eugene Katchalov | €315,000 | ||
| 4th | Raul Mestre | €244,000 | ||
| 5th | Tomeu Gomila | €185,000 | ||
| 6th | Saar Wilf | €145,000 | ||
| 7th | Juan Manuel Perez | €105,000 | ||
| 8th | Isabel Clemente Baltazar | €73,000 | ||
| Players: 1 (811) | Prize pool: €4,055,000 | ||||
Check out this interview with Martin after his victory:
