Ben Heath won the second tournament in a row at the EPT
In the early morning of December 11, the third High Roller in the EPT Prague series, which takes place at the Hilton institution, ended. The one-day event with a buy-in of 25,000 EUR lasted 13 hours. There were 30 entries in the tournament, but only 5 people got the prizes. All the chips, as the day before, were collected by Ben Heath. In the heads-up, the Briton defeated Kannapong Thanarattrakul in a hard struggle and went home with the main prize of 273,710 EUR. Ben Heath won the second tournament in a row at the EPT.
Thanarattrakul dominated the final table and knocked out Kent Staahle, who became a bubble boy but could not finish what he started and lost to his opponent in a two-hour heads-up. Aleksejs Ponakovs, Pablo Brito Silva, and Jorryt van Hoof also got prizes. Pablo Brito Silva also earned money a day earlier, taking 4th place (63,390 EUR).
- Ben Heath — 273,710 EUR
- Kannapong Thanarattrakul — 176,470 EUR
- Aleksejs Ponakovs — 117,050 EUR
- Pablo Brito Silva — 84,640 EUR
- Jorryt van Hoof — 68,430 EUR
To win the second consecutive victory, Heath had to try hard. He had to use the reentry option when his A-K ran into Timothy Adams’ pocket aces at the 3rd level of the blinds. By that time, Mike Watson had already managed to make a reentry, having crashed at the 1st level.
Ben Heath and Kannapong Thanarattrakul remained at the top of the chip count
Orpen Kisacikoglu, Pascal Lefrancois, the Timothy mentioned above Adams, Tom Orpaz, and Rodrigo Seiji all reentered the game. The runner-up of the tournament, Thanarattrakul, had to make a buy-in for the second time after Adams’ A-9 beat his A-10. Alex Kulev, who had become a runner-up the day before, quickly doubled after entering the game but could not keep up the pace and dropped out before the break.
After the end of the reentry period, Juan Pardo, Dimitar Danchev, Rodrigo Seiji, and Steve O’Dwyer left the tournament. After the players sat down at the same table, Adrian Mateos and Sam Greenwood were eliminated. The Spaniard with pocket tens lost to Thanarattrakul’s 9th high street. The situation was even worse for Greenwood. His kings were ahead of Heath’s A-K; Greenwood improved to a set on the flop, but it wasn’t enough because Heath collected Broadway.
Orpen Kisacikoglu went home next. After that, Staahle decided to risk all the chips by having a flush draw but lost to the top pair of Thanarattrakul. By knocking out Staahle, the Thai player rendered a service to Aleksejs Ponakovs, who had the shortest stack at that time. All this time, Ben Heath and Kannapong Thanarattrakul remained at the top of the chip count.
In the heads-up, Thanarattrakul had twice as many chips, but the Heath gradually took away the stack from the opponent. At one point, the stack ratio was 5 to 1 in favor of the Briton, but the poker player from Thailand returned to the game and came forward again. And then, literally, in the blink of an eye, everything was over when Thanarattrakul’s K-10 was powerless in front of Heath’s A-J.