Thomas Hofmann Takes Down the WPTDeepStacks Main Event in Berlin For €129,510

The WPTDeepStacks kicked off it’s 2019 schedule with the first event at Berlin from Jan 11-14. The year 2018 was a fantastic one for WPTDeepStacks that saw eight Main Event champions crowned across Europe.

The opening event of the year, €1,100 WPTDeepStacks (WPTDS) Main Event at the Spielbank Casino in Berlin has found a champion. Thomas Hofmann (cover image), a telecommunication engineer from Switzerland, took down the championship title after besting a 645-player field, winning the €129,510 ($150,825) first-place prize along with a €2,000 WPTDS package. The huge turnout resulted in a €688,215 prize pool easily surpassing the €500,000 guarantee by €188,215.

For Hoffman, this win qualifies as his career’s best live score outdoing his previous best of $122,850 that came through a runner-up finish in the 2017 WSOPE Little One for One Drop. A few other great scores of Hoffman’s poker career include a title win in the 2009 CAPT Salzburg Open for $86,868, and runner-up finishes in the 2012 CAPT European Poker Championship Baden for $71,198, and 2014 Poker Circle Swiss Open for $38,325.

The final day saw 27 players returning to the felt for a shot at the title and following 18 eliminations, the nine-handed final table was formed.

Final Table Recap

Brian Cornell was the first to exit the nine-player final table. Cornell, who started the final day second in chips, had a very short stint on the final table and eventually departed in ninth place.

Short-stack Thorsten Fleischhut was next to hit the rail in eighth place, followed by Wojciech Wyrebski who exited in seventh place when his pocket queens were cracked by Eldaras Rafijevas’s ace-ten that made two-pair.

The next elimination hand saw Hoffman and Andreas Mitsch face off against each other. Hofmann open-raised to 180,000 and called a 1.6 Million shove from Mitsch. Hofmann was ahead with pocket nines against his opponent’s king-jack, and he sealed the deal after flopping a set.

Another short stack, Alexandru Cinca was the next casualty at the final table. Cinca lost all his chips to Rafijevas’ and left in fifth place.

Following him out the door was Sebastian Trisch, who moved all in with ten-five and was snap-called by Patrick Kubat holding king-queen.

However, things didn’t go too well for Patrick Kubat either. Being the shortest stack in the three-way play, Kubat could not hold on much longer and was forced to leave in third place.

The heads-up play began with Hoffman having an upper hand with a stack of 12,000,000 to Eldaras Rafijevas’ 7,000,000. However, Rafijevas didn’t give in easily and fought it out, and even made the stacks level at one point, but Hoffman had other plans. He pulled the lead back in his favor and soon the event saw its final hand.

In the final hand, Rafijevas moved all in with pocket treys and got looked up by Hofmann holding ace-jack. The flop opened an ace that immensely increased Hoffmans chances with a top pair. With no help on the turn and the river , Rafijevas departed as runner-up, leaving Hofmann to claim the WPTDeepStacks Berlin Main Event title, along with a career-best €129,510 in prize money.

Final Table Results

1 Thomas Hofmann – €129,510

2 Eldaras Rafijevas – €83,720

3 Patrick Kubat – €61,700

4 Sebastian Trisch – €45,985

5 Alexandru Cinca – €34,660

6 Andreas Mitsch – €26,425

7 Wojciech Wyrebski – €20,380

8 Thorsten Fleischhut – €15,905

9 Brian Cornell – €12,560

After a successful stop in Berlin, WPTDeepStacks is scheduled to visit Sochi, Russia next, followed by a stop in Brussels in February, and Barcelona in March!