Ihar Soika Wins EPT 11 Barcelona €10,300 High Roller, Jason Mercier Sportingly Settles for 2nd Place

The EPT 11 Barcelona €10,300 High Roller has ended and Ihar Soika (cover image) of Belarus was the new Champion, taking home €747,200, after beating Team PokerStars Pro Jason Mercier heads-up.

This event too broke all records with its 393 entries and the final day saw just 21 players that included Juha Helppi, Nicolas Chouity, Dario Sammartino, Stephen Chidwick, Ami Barer, and Marc-Andre Ladouceur amongst others.

Eliminations began straight away and Angel Guillen was the first to go, followed by Vladimir Troyanovskiy and Nicolas Chouity at 21st, 20th and 19th place respectively.

Then there was a slight lull, before eliminations began again at 15^th place, which saw Italian Dario Sammartino exiting.

After that Joao Vieira, Agshin Rasulov, Dylan Linde, Alexander Roumeliotis, and Dmitry Yurasov went out. And it was only after Maxim Panyak hit the rails at 9^th place that a final table was reached.

Carlos Chadha was the first to leave the final table at 8^th place, after being nixed by Stephen Chidwick’s pocket sixes, who fell next. Chidwick was unable to continue with his king-queen, when he encountered Ismail Erkanov’s ace-queen.

Team Online’s Ladouceur was busted at 6^th place, with his ace-jack versus the tens of Barer. The board offered him no succor and he went out with €168,600.

Soika was responsible for the next bustout and triggered Benjamin Pollak’s exit with pocket aces.

Ami Barer fell at 4^th and once again, Soika became bête noir for another player, this time Erkanov, who succumbed at 3^rd place leaving just Mercier and Soika at the table.

The heads-up play had Soika at his best with Mercier getting not the slightest chance to rally.

At one point, Mercier caught Max Lykov at the rails and asked Soika, “You know Max?“ With a grin Mercier then remarked to Lykov “No wonder he’s good. School of Max. School of Lykov.“

As friends, girlfriend and supporters railed Soika, Mercier remained cool, as he was almost already resigned to taking second place.

The final moments had Soika with the upper hand with his against Mercier’s . A board that brought sealed the deal and Soika took the win.

A sporting Mercier let Soika hog all the limelight and his words said it all, “It’s a huge score. I had pretty much all of myself in this tournament. I was at risk of bubbling, I was all-in with queens against ace-nine three off the money. I could easily have lost that one and I was all in a million times. Obviously I would have loved to get first, but I’m very happy to get second.”

EPT High Roller Final Table Results

Image Courtesy: PokerStars blog