Ivan Banic Wins the 2016 WSOP Circuit Main Event Rozvadov for €232,241!
After four days of thrilling poker, Croatian player Ivan Banic has triumphed over a field of 851 entries in the 2016 WSOP Circuit Event Rozvadov. Banic beat Yehuda Cohen heads-up at King's Casino to take the WSOP Circuit Ring along with the €232,241 top prize and entrance to the season-culminating WSOP Global Casino Championship.
| Position | Player | Country | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ivan Banic | Croatia | €232,241 |
| 2 | Yehuda Cohen | Germany | €144,551 |
| 3 | Mihai Croitoru | Romania | €103,441 |
| 4 | Georgios Vrakas | Germany | €80,037 |
| 5 | Michal Kadziela | Poland | €63,059 |
| 6 | Marco Topic | Germany | €49,356 |
| 7 | Henning Wendlandt | Austria | €36,502 |
| 8 | Stefan Drabert | Germany | €25,102 |
It was an amazing day of action by any standards, and it began like it ended - with drama. Stefan Drabert was not the short stack coming into play, but he was the first man out of the door. That was because Yehuda 'Chikita' Cohen managed to double-up through him very early on, with two-pair beating top pair on the flop. Drabert knew that he needed to improve his stack to run deeper than eighth place. He failed to do that when his all-in move with king-queen was called by the ace-six of eventual winner Banic, who held.
Henning Wendlandt hadn't been able to get going at all in the first two levels of play, and decided to make an all-in move from the button with ten-high but he was called by the Greek player Georgios Vrakas in the small blind with pocket nines, which held. In the next hand, the German's shoved king-ten and was crushed by overnight chip leader Mihai Croitoru's pocket aces.
Next out the door was Marco Topic. He knew he needed to be bold to get back among the big stacks. His attempt to do so with a dominated ace amounted to nothing and the German was sent home with €49,356 for his week's work.
Michal Kadziela ran into a cold deck early in proceedings, meaning that his comfortable stack looked decidedly at risk by the time he was all-in for just 1.3 million with jack-ten. Mihai Croitoru’s call with king-nine in the small blind moved play four-handed, with the Polish player unable to hit.
Busting out in fourth place was Georgios Vrakas when he was all-in. He had only a couple of chips more than Croitoru and both players knew the all-in was crucial. Vrakas had the best of it holding ace-ten against ace-nine, but Croitoru had two spades and the all-spade flop send the Greek player home and gave the overnight chip leader renewed hope. It was to be false hope.
Croitoru departed the WSOP Circuit Ring Main Event in third place after a dramatic exit to massive chip leader Ivan Banic. The Romanian rivered a fortunate straight only to lose almost all of his chips by calling against a raise on the river to Banic's flush. Mihai Croitoru was out just a hand later.
Banic held a better than 9:1 chip lead heads-up, and it took just two hands to finish off his short-stacked opponent, the eponymous Yehuda Cohen. 'Chikita' folded ace-five before the dinner break, but upon his return, he moved all-in with ace-eight, and Ivan Banic called it off with nine-seven. A seven on the river ended the tournament just when Cohen thought he was going to be back into it, and in doing so, gave the Croatian the biggest win of his live career so far. Banic took home €232,241 along with the prized WSOP Circuit Ring and an entry into the €1,000,000 added season-culminating WSOP Global Casino Championship.
