The third Epic Poker League Main Event took place over the weekend and 98 players showed up to play a variety of different formats, known as the “Mix Max”. By the time the dust had settled there was only one man sat with chips in front of him, Chris “SLOPPYKLOD” Klodnicki.
Klodnicki has results in live poker tournament s dating back to 2005 and has several large scores. In 2008 he finished as runner-up to Barry Greenstein in the $1,500 Seven Card Razz event at the World Series of Poker for $97,389 and then went on to finish 12th in the Main Event for a bankroll boosting $591,869. Just months later he took down the $2,000 Borgata Deepstack for $226,780 and had dozens of cashes right up to present day totalling just shy of $1,000,000.
He started the five-handed final table third in chips behind both Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi and Andrew “Lucky Chewy” Lichtenberger. The amazing structure of the event meant the average stack at the final table was a massive 166 big blinds but Scott “Big Risky” Clements only had 20bb and was the first casualty of the night.
Next to go was Mizrachi, albeit three hours later, his Ah3s losing out to Joe Tehan’s Kh6h when the latter flopped two pair and then a few more hours passed before Tehan’s Ad7c could not beat Klodnicki’s pair of red nines to take the tournament to a best of three heads up battle.
Klodnicki lead Lichtenberger by 3,470,000 to 1,526,000 chips but in the first match, which took around three and a half hours, Lichtenberger fought back over the course of 140 hands but was eventually beaten. The chips started to fly on a 8c-4d-4c flop with Lichtenberger’s Jc9c needing to catch a club to beat Klodnicki’s pocket kings but it did not happen and it was one-nil to Klodnicki.
The second match only took 90 minutes and again saw the money go in on the flop. Lichtenberger held AcKh against Ad4d on a 8c-7d-3d flop and when the turn and river were the 4c and 2c respectively it was all over, Klodnicki had won the “Mix Max” Main Event. Klodnicki now has more than $2,800,000 in live tournament winnings and now finds himself in second place in the Epic Poker League winnings leaderboard meaning he is almost nailed on to participate in the $1,000,000 freeroll during 2012.
Epic Poker League “Mix Max” Main Event Final Day Payouts
1st: Chris Klodnicki: $801,680
2nd: Andrew Lichtenberger: $514,480
3rd: Joe Tehan: $306,800
4th: Michael Mizrachi: $174,640
5th: Scott Clements: $89,680
The Poker Channel is proud to be the first channel in Europe to show the Epic Poker League- coming soon in January!
