Nick Petrangelo Wins EPT Barcelona €10,300 Single Reentry, €413K
The European Poker Tour Barcelona festival is well underway to kick off the EPT's 13th season, and the first of several marquee events is in the books with Nick Petrangelo topping a tough 240-entry field to win the €10,300 Single Reentry event and a €413,000 first prize.
Petrangelo outlasted a talented final table and a lengthy three-way contest with eventual runner-up finisher Marcin Chmielewski and Markku Koplimaa who took third. The trio battled for four hours, then came another half-hour of heads-up before Petrangelo finally prevailed.
With 195 uniques and 45 reentries, the total prize pool added up to €2,328,000. Here's how the final table payouts looked:
| Place | Winner | Country | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nick Petrangelo | United States | €413,000 |
| 2 | Marcin Chmielewski | Poland | €285,410 |
| 3 | Markku Koplimaa | Estonia | €220,230 |
| 4 | Roman Korenev | Russia | €173,670 |
| 5 | Pavel Plesuv | Moldova | €134,100 |
| 6 | Kitty Kuo | Taiwan | €101,500 |
| 7 | Enzo Del Piero | United Kingdom | €75,900 |
| 8 | Yang Zheng | China | €57,270 |
Two long days of play produced just 14 survivors from the starting field, with Alexandru Papazian carrying the chip lead to Friday's final day of play.
Alas for Papazian, he'd fall shy of the final table to bust in 10th (€38,640) after some early struggles punctuated by his pocket kings being unable to hold against the A♥K♥ of Pavel Plesuv.
Papazian followed Byron Kaverman (14th - €30,260), Dario Sammartino (13th - €33,750), Patrick Leonard (12th - €33,750), and Sergey Lebedev (11th - €38,640) to the rail, and when Igor Yaroshevskyy was knocked out in ninth for €45,630 the official final table was set with Plesuv the chip leader, Koplimaa in second position, and Petrangelo third.
Yang Zhang next busted in eighth after calling off his stack on fifth street with second pair only to see Petrangelo had rivered a wheel. Then following a dinner break Enzo Del Piero lost his short stack to finish seventh after running pocket nines into the pocket aces of Kitty Kuo.
Kuo was celebrating a birthday on Friday, and would ultimately add sixth-place prize money as a birthday gift. She was eliminated by Roman Korenev after being on the wrong side of a queens-versus-kings preflop all-in.
At five-handed Plesuv became the short stack, and when his K♦J♦ couldn't catch up to Korenev's A♣K♥ Plesuv fell in fifth. Just a few minutes after that Marcin Chmielewski wiped out Korenev in fourth when the latter's pocket sevens couldn't hold up against Chmielewski's A♠10♠ after the board brought a ten.
The epic three-handed battle then commenced with Petrangelo leading Chmielewski to start and Koplimaa the short stack. All three would take turns leading and trailing as their chips rose and fell repeatedly. Finally Koplimaa went out in third after his A♥7♣ was bested by Chmielewski's A♣J♠, and he enjoyed a big lead versus Petrangelo to begin heads-up play.
But Petrangelo doubled up no less than four times — once with jacks against ace-king, then with king-ten versus pocket sixes, again with ace-five against queen-five, and one more time with ten-nine versus king-eight.
A fifth double-up then followed when Petrangelo's pocket eights held against Chmielewski's nine-six, giving Petrangelo the advantage. Then on the final hand Chmielewski was all in with 5♣5♦ against Petrangelo's K♠J♠, and a 9♦J♥6♠2♥6♦ runout gave Petrangelo the better two pair and the win.
Just a few days separated from a fourth-place finish in the $25,500 High Roller Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open where he won $190,313, Petrangelo adds yet another big score to bring his career tournament earnings close to the $5.9 million mark.
As noted, the EPT13 Barcelona festival is just getting started, with several more big events to come including the €50,000 Super High Roller that begins today. The PokerNews Live Reporting Team also begins its coverage today with live updates, chip counts, videos, and more from that event, the first of four the team will be covering:
- €50,000 Super High Roller (Aug. 20-22)
- €25,500 Single-Day High Roller (Aug. 23-24)
- €5,300 Main Event (Aug. 22-28)
- €10,300 High Roller (Aug. 26-28)
Photo courtesy PokerStars Blog/Carlos Monti.
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