Corentin Ropert opened to 35,000 from early position and Pavel Plesuv defended his big blind.
The flop came and Plesuv check-called 40,000. The turn was the and Plesuv again check-called, this time for 140,000.
The river was the and both players checked.
Plesuv turned over for a missed straight draw, with Ropert taking the pot down with for just ten-high. This pot also moved Ropert up over one million in chips.
Tsugunari Toma moved all in from the cutoff and Charlie Carrel called in the big blind for his last 120,000.
Tsugunari Toma:
Charlie Carrel:
The board ran out and the final table chip leader Carrel was eliminated two spots off the money. Coincidentally, this is the same position Carrel was eliminated from the first €25,000 Single-Day High Roller
Chip leader Corentin Ropert raised to 40,000 from early position and saw Tsugunari Toma, in middle position, and Sergi Reixach, in the big blind call.
The flop fell , and Reixach checked before Ropert bet 60,000. Toma folded, and Reixach gave himself 20 seconds to think before he moved all in for around 200,000 which Ropert snap-called.
Sergi Reixach:
Corentin Ropert:
Both players held top pair, but Ropert was ahead with his king kicker. Reixach was in danger of bubbling the money spaces unless he could improve on the turn or river, but the cards fell and Reixach was confirmed as the 7th place finisher.
The remaining six players are now all in the money and guaranteed at least €57,140.
Tsugunari Toma moved all in for 494,000. It folded to Pavel Plesuv in the small blind who thought for a moment before calling. Dietrich Fast open-folded in the big blind.
Tsugunari Toma:
Pavel Plesuv:
The jack on the flop gave Toma top pair. The turn was the and the river gave Toma the pot. The dealer counted Plesuv's stack and it was exactly 494,000 and he was eliminated.
Norbert Szecsi raised to 115,000 from the cutoff and left himself with around 30,000 behind. Dietrich Fast raised to 200,000 from the button and after the rest of the players got out of the way Szecsi called.
Norbert Szecsi:
Dietrich Fast:
Board:
For the second time this level, Szecsi had run his ace hand into a dominated position against Fast and this time he needed help to survive.
Fast improved to two pair on the flop, and after the turn and river had fallen, the German had secured the pot and sent Szecsi to the rail in 5th place for €73,470.
Tsugunari Toma folded, and Michael Addamo moved all in from the small blind for around 550,000. Corentin Ropert was in the big blind and didn't take long to call.
Michael Addamo:
Corentin Ropert:
Ropert was in a good position and the flop came . The turn and river changed nothing and Addamo tapped the table as he was eliminated.
The players are taking a short break before they start heads-up play.
Corentin Ropert opened to 60,000 and Tsugunari Toma three-bet to 205,000. Ropert called.
Toma bet 155,000 on the flop and the turn was the . Toma used a time extension before checking.
Ropert bet 275,000 and Toma instantly moved all in for around 1,100,000. Ropert snap-called.
Corentin Ropert:
Tsugunari Toma:
Ropert and his rail celebrated as Toma was drawing dead. The river was the giving Ropert quads and eliminating Toma in second place. He takes home €191,840.
One day Frenchman Corentin Ropert was thinking about watching a movie, and the next he's won €277,560 in the second €25,000 Single-Day High Roller of the PokerStars European Poker Tour Prague festival.
Ropert told PokerNews that with things not going his way so far this festival, last night he contemplated putting on a movie, but instead opted to satellite into the €25,000 Single-Day High Roller the following day.
"I saw that the winner of the other €25k [Thomas Boivin] had qualified through a satellite, so I thought why not? And here I am!"
This is the biggest cash of Ropert's career to date by far. In 2014 he finished fourth in the FPS Deauville Main Event for €60,100. Now he's cashed for almost five times that amount here in the Czech capital!
Here are the results from the final table:
Place
Name
Country
Payout in EUR
Payout in USD
1
Corentin Ropert
France
€ 277,560
$313,852
2
Tsugunari Toma
Japan
€ 191,840
$216,924
3
Michael Addamo
Australia
€ 122,450
$138,460
4
Dietrich Fast
Germany
€ 93,880
$106,155
5
Norbert Szecsi
Hungary
€ 73,470
$83,076
6
Pavel Plesuv
Moldova
€ 57,140
$64,611
Going into heads-up with a large chip lead of Japanese player Tsugunari Toma, he called the check-raise all in from Toma with trip fives and have his opponent drawing dead.
"The first twenty minutes of heads-up just didn't go my way. I didn't win a hand! "When I saw the hand, I couldn't believe it."
Runner-up Toma also recorded the biggest cash of his career, beating the sixth place at the Taipa APPT Main Event final table for HK$952,000 ($122,830). Last year he finished 11th in the PSC Prague €10,300 High Roller for €43,400. We will have to see if he has a deep run in that event this year, which starts tomorrow.
Recap of the Day's Action
The second €25,000 Single-Day High Roller got underway at 12:30 pm, with first and second place from the first Single-Day High Roller Thomas Boivin and Steve O’Dwyer in action early on.
Jean-Noel Thorel became the first of many to fall from the 29 unique entries this event gathered. With five re-entries that created a total field of 34 players of which five would be guaranteed a min-cash of €57,140.
Shortly after registration closed, both Boivin and O’Dwyer had been eliminated, with Dietrich Fast and Charlie Carrel battling for the chip lead.
With two tables remaining, the likes of Thorel and Timothy Adams – who had swapped Main Event for High Roller at the very last minute – before Carrel scored a big double through Michael Soyza to jump into the outright chip lead ahead of Fast.
Carrel turned top pair and rivered a flush and called to pick off the Malaysian's bluff with bottom pair. A short while later Carrel sent Soyza to the rail in a classic race – tens versus ace-king. The pair held and the final table of nine was confirmed.
The early stages were remarkable, in that besides the elimination of Juan Pardo, there was a spate of doubles and even triples. Pavel Plesuv doubled twice and Dietrich Fast doubled and then tripled up as the chip counts swung back and forth.
Corentin Ropert fought back from being the short stack at the start of the final table to chip leader at the dinner break by tripling and then doubling up in quick succession.
When they returned it wasn’t long until the next elimination. The final table hadn’t been kind to Carrel who came in as chip leader, but he was sent to the rail when his ace was out-kicked by that of Tsugunari Toma.
Not long after that the bubble burst. Both Sergi Reixach and Ropert flopped pairs, but Reixach was outkicked and he would fall in seventh, the remaining six players all guaranteeing themselves €57,140.
Plesuv finished fifth in the earlier Single-Day High Roller, but he would fail to improve on that finish here as he was eliminated in sixth before Norbert Szecsi bust in fifth at the hands of Fast.
That gave Fast a boost, but after bluffing off to Ropert with just king-high - and getting called down by ace-high - Addamo finished off the German and they were down to three.
With an average of over 40 big blinds, the pace was expected to slow somewhat. However, when Addamo shoved ace-nine from the small blind, Ropert woke up with pocket nines to send the Australian out in third, one spot better than he managed in the other Single-Day High Roller. Plesuv and Addamo were the only two players to cash in both events.
That elimination meant that Ropert held an almost 4:1 chip lead heads-up against Toma, but the Japanese player battled back to get the stacks almost to even. However, a mistimed jam from Toma into the trips of Ropert meant that he was drawing dead and the Frenchman was left to celebrate wildly on the rail with his jubilant compatriots.
"Having the support on my rail was incredible," said Ropert. "The tournament was very tough but luckily I had quite a lot of good situations and I was very happy with how I played. It was exhausting, but it's a crazy feeling."
Stay tuned to PokerNews for continued coverage of the PokerStars European Poker Tour festival here in Prague, with the €10,300 High Roller starting tomorrow. You can catch all the action as it happens right here.