Sam Greenwood, Steve O'Dwyer Chop EPT Prague 25K Single Day High Roller

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Dec 16, 2019 4 min read Last updated Dec 19, 2019

The €25,000 Single-Day High Roller II saw 66 entries including 23 reentries take their shot at becoming the champion of the second of two events of its kind at the 2019 PokerStars EPT Prague. It took over 14 hours and 23 full levels of play for a winner to be determined, and when all was said and done, Sam Greenwood claimed the title after agreeing to a heads-up chop with Steve O’Dwyer.

Greenwood took fifth place in an earlier €25,000 event this series (€63,870) and was able to improve upon that finish en route to the first-place prize of €384,968 (USD $428,086), adding to his already-impressive lifetime earnings of over $20 million.

2019 EPT Prague €25,000 Single Day High Roller II Final Table Results

The Early Goings

Greenwood was one of the first players to join the tournament, having registered in the first level of play, but found himself dry on chips after his first entry of the day. He got right back in on the action, however, and wound up being shuffled from table to table throughout the balancing process that occurred during the extended 10-level registration period.

Other players such as Adrian Mateos, Daniel Dvoress, and Tsugunari Toma also were around to start the day, and were quickly joined by others such as Jean-Noel Thorel, Juha Helppi, and Single-Day High Roller I champion Chin Wei Lim.

There was no shortage of action across every table in the room, which at its peak totaled five tables of play as the registration period continued and many who were eliminated fired second and, in some cases third bullets. During that time, Greenwood was able to take a starting stack of 100,000 up to just shy of 400,000 to take one of the largest stacks into the evening.

Into the Night

O’Dwyer was the clear chip leader coming back from the dinner break when registration closed after he eliminated Simon Pedersen, who had been one of the largest stacks in the room throughout most of the afternoon when he made a flush that bested Pedersen’s straight to bring his stack up to 940,000. At that point, 27 remained and it took about an hour-and-a-half for that number to reach 16 for the two-table redraw.

Over the course of that time, Sam Grafton was seen consistently adding to his stack, entering the final two tables with a count just shy of 1 million. Meanwhile, others hung around as the action flew by, with Danny Tang and Matthias Eibinger being just a few of the players who never seemed to be involved in big pots as they continued to maintain their stack and survive.

Greenwood was also in the middle of the pack at the time, but he found a one-outer on the turn to double after running pocket kings into Robbie Toan’s pocket aces. Tang had opened the action on the hand and accidentally exposed one of the two kings left in the deck when folding, putting Greenwood in even worse shape until the case king saved him. Toan had his eyes set on one of the largest stacks in the room, but instead found himself short and busted shortly thereafter when he made Broadway on the river only to run into Ramin Hajiyev's full house. However, Hajiyev was soon after eliminated by Jans "Graftekkel" Arends as the bubble quickly approached.

The Final Table

The final table of nine was reached just two levels after the initial redraw at 16, and O’Dwyer and Grafton entered the final table with over half the chips in play between the two of them, both with nearly three times that of Arends, who was third in chips at the time.

Greenwood found himself short early on but it would be Joris Ruijs who departed in ninth place. From there, short stacks staying alive became the theme of the tournament. Only Mustafa Jukovic (8th place) and Eibinger (7th place) were eliminated over the next two-plus hours as almost every all-in situation resulted in the player who was at risk doubling.

The blinds continued to climb, hitting less than 100 total big blinds in play with six still remaining. Eventually, the levels caught up and George Wolff (6th place), Tang (5th place), and Arends (4th place) were all eliminated within a span of 15 minutes.

The Final Three

Three-handed play began with Greenwood atop the counts at 3.5 million, followed by O’Dwyer at 2.6 million and Grafton with just 560,000. Grafton quickly found a double and then chipped up a bit more before becoming the shortest stack again after doubling O’Dwyer. From there, Grafton doubled back through O’Dwyer but was eliminated from the tournament on the third all-in situation between the two when Grafton got pocket sixes in preflop against O’Dwyer’s aces and was unable to get there.

Once Grafton was eliminated, Greenwood and O’Dwyer took a quick break. Greenwood stayed at the table and the two agreed to do a chip chop upon O’Dwyer’s return. However, a winner needed to be determined and the two decided to run one hand of Hold’em to declare the victor. They agreed O’Dwyer would get dealt two hands as he had the chip lead, but Greenwood would only need one hand as he made the nuts and became the champion.

• Tags EPT European Poker Tour Sam Greenwood Steve O'Dwyer
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