Picture the moment.
Your pocket sixes square up to AK. You stand on tippy-toes reaching over the table, trying to scare the deck into delivering an aceless, kingless flop, turn and river.
As the dealer burns and turns you hear nothing but the delightful sounds of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21 in C Major, as each street produces a playing card that goes according to the movie script you have played over in your mind since the day you fell in love with the game.
And then, just like that, there are no more cards to come.
No more starving children, no need to fight with the rats with whiskers like fencing foils over the mouldy bread.
You’ve won Event #9: €100,000 No-Limit Hold’em King’s Super High Roller at the World Series of Poker Europe (WSOPE) for €2,624,340. The trumpets blow a fanfare, the geese break V formation overhead to spell your name, and the photographer asks you to pose for a photograph your kids will one-day point to and say proudly, “That’s my Dad.”
That’s what happened to Martin Kabrhel this week.
Only, if you look at that winner’s photo, you can be pardoned for thinking he has just realised his Type 1 Diabetes has run amok, and underneath the poker table, someone is amputating both of his legs without anaesthetic.
Cheer up, Martin, it might never happen.
Although it did, didn’t it?
Kabrhel conquered a field of 95-entrants in the most substantial buy-in event at the 2018 WSOPE, 37 fewer than attended the 2017 event, which Dominik Nitsche took down to register his most significant prize to date. And talking of Nitsche, he was one of a handful of players who put in a decent shift.
The German star came close to defending his title, finishing fifth. Last year’s third-place finisher, Mikita Badziakouski finished fourth, and Michael Addamo continued his superb run of form, finishing eighth a few days shy of picking up the win in the €25k High Roller.
There was also a personal best for Julian Thomas (€1,116,308), a young man Nitsche told me is the next big German star in the making. Thomas exited in third at the hands of the man who seemingly has control of the high stakes jukebox, David Peters.
The American entered the heads-up phase with Kabrhel with a 3.5:1 chip lead, but the Czech star evened things up when his flush extracted value from Peters’ top pair, and then the duo got it in with the 66 v AK hand I went a little over the top with at the start of this thing.
According to the scribes at PokerNews, Peters’ runner-up position, and fourth seven-figure score of the year will likely see him replace Alex Foxen at the top of the Global Poker Index (GPI) World Rankings.
Kabrhel is unlikely ever to reach those dizzy heights, but he did overtake Martin Staszko at the top of the Czech All-Time Live Tournament Rankings after his win, and what I love about Kabrhel is his penchant to playing anything.
With most high rollers choosing to join the WSOPE fray at the bitter end. Kabrhel was there at the start of September when the World Series of Poker Circuit (WSOPC) hit town, winning both a €299 and a €550 buy-in event to take his total of WSOPC gold rings up to four.
When Kabrhel sits down to play poker in the King’s Casino, it feels like his front room. This time last year, he was winning his first gold bracelet after overcoming 325-entrants in the €1,100 No-Limit Hold’em Super Turbo Bounty event for €53,557.
Now he has two.
And if that’s not worth smiling about, I don’t know what is.
Final Table Results
- Martin Kabrhel – €2,624,340
- David Peters – €1,621,960
- Julian Thomas – €1,116,308
- Mikita Badziakouski – €789,612
- Dominik Nitsche – €574,466
- Jan Schwippert – €430,217
- Adrian Mateos – €331,943
- Michael Addamo – €264,110
Three other players were brewing the late night coffee in this one including the 2017 Super High Roller Bowl winner, Christoph Vogelsang (10th), the man who wins everything except this one, Steve O’Dwyer (13th), and the former Poker Masters Champion, Steffen Sontheimer (15th).
