The final table of the Pokerstars.net EPT Snowfest is now set after the 24 players who made it through to Day 4 where whittled away, over the course of seven hours, until only eight of them had their chip stacks intact.
A total of 482 players paid the €3,750 in order to take part in EPT Snowfest, creating a prizepool of €1,636,390 which was shared out amongst the top 72 finishes. The money bubble was burst on Day 3 and yesterday the final 24 players returned to the beautiful Alpine Palace Hotel in Saalbach-Hinterglemm to play down to the final table of eight.
Each of the returning players was guaranteed to walk away with no less than €9,000 but they all knew that reaching the final table would be worth at least €35,000 to them and making it to the last day would also mean they would have a very realistic chance of walking away with the €390,000 on offer for the man who manages to win each of the 14,460,000 chips in play.
Leading the way going into the final table is Kevin Vandersmissen, a Belgian professional poker player who starts the day with a colossal stack of 4,512,000, more than 2,300,000 than his nearest rival Cristian Dragomir. Vandersmissen ran well throughout the day and always seemed to turn up with the goods each time he was involved in a big pot but he also showed that he was playing well too at times. In one hand halfway through the day he ran a bluff that was quite frankly brilliant.
With the blinds at 10,000/20,000/2,000a Vandersmissen min-raised from early position and the only person who called him was Martins Adeniya who was seated in the big blind. The flop came down 8d-Qd-Jh, Adeniya checked, Vandersmissen continuation bet to 43,000 and Adeniya called. The turn saw the 8s make an appearance and again Adeniya checked. Vandersmissen was in no mood to check behind and bet 94,000 chips and again Adeniya called. The river was the Td and for the third time Adeniya checked, Vandersmissen then fired 195,000 into the middle of the felt, which sent Adeniya deep into the tank. He looked in physical pain whilst he thought about his decision, finally finding a fold despite saying he wanted to call. As he mucked Vandersmissen turned over 6s5s for a complete bluff! Amazing stuff by the young Belgian.
Play resumes at 1400 local time and will continue until a new EPT Champion is crowned. Stay tuned for a full report into the goings on at the final table.
Final table layout
Seat 1: Kevin Vadersmissen – 4,512,000
Seat 2: Giacomo Maisto – 986,000
Seat 3: Vladimir Geshkenbein – 1,678,000
Seat 4: Philip Meulyzer – 1,758,000
Seat 5: Denis Murphy – 997,000
Seat 6: Morten Mortensen – 740,000
Seat 7: Cristian Dragomir – 2,293,000
Seat 8: Koen De Visscher – 1,543,000
