Merit Poker Classic 2019
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More than thirteen hours after the final day started, a winner has been crowned in the Merit Poker Classic $5,300 Main Event. It’s a home island win for Cyprus’ own Andreas Christoforou, who grabbed the first-place prize of $565,157 by defeating Israel’s Liran Twito heads-up. The tournament was organized by Merit Poker, in conjunction with partypoker LIVE and Poker Club Management here in the Merit Crystal Cove Hotel and Casino and attracted 649 entries in total, which included 211 entries, which created a total prize pool of $2,990,267.
- Merit Poker Classic. View By Year: 2019. Finished Tournaments Winner Winning Hand Prize Runner-up Losing Hand; 2019 Merit Poker Classic Monday, May 6 through Sunday.
- 🏆סיום יום 1C ב 2019 Merit Poker Classic🏆 202 כניסות, 100 שורדים, סער ווילף וגם אורי גלבוע עשו זאת ועברו ליום 2. עולם הפוקר 8.5.19 14:00 🏆פתיחת יום 1C בטורניר המרכזי של 2019 Merit Poker Classic.
- Main Eventului Merit Poker Classic de 5.300$ a ajuns in ziua 3 de joc si cinci romani (cel putin patru de top) se afla in continuare in joc, intre ultimii 149 ramasi din cei 649 care au jucat cele cinci flighturi de start in turneul cu 3.000.000$ garantati.
This win is Christoforou’s biggest cash ever in the live tournament circuit, nearly doubling his total winnings in one fell swoop (according to The Hendon Mob) and will take him to second place on the Cyprus All Time Money List. Christoforou started the day at the short stack but managed to wield himself through the minefield of eliminations to claim the win in the end with a huge rail cheering him on along the way.
Other notable players to have reached the final table of ten included the two partypoker pros Kristen Bicknell and Ludovic Geilich, Basil Yaiche, Anton Morgenstern, Mustafa Biz, and Florian Duta.
2019 Merit Poker Classic Main Event Final Table Results
Cyprus Merit Poker Classic. Merit Crystal Cove Hotel-Casino, Kyrenia. 2 - 12 May 2019. Schedule (18) Subscribe to Updates Add to Facebook. Thu 2 - Mon 6 May.
| Place | Player | Country | Prize (USD) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Andreas Christoforou | Cyprus | $565,157 |
| 2 | Liran Twito | Israel | $416,245 |
| 3 | Kristen Bicknell | Canada | $254,770 |
| 4 | Daniel Braude | Israel | $188,685 |
| 5 | Basil Yaiche | France | $141,440 |
| 6 | Ludovic Geilich | United Kingdom | $113,330 |
| 7 | Selahaddin Bedir | Turkey | $94,490 |
| 8 | Anton Morgenstern | Germany | $75,355 |
| 9 | Mustafa Biz | Turkey | $56,515 |
| 10 | Florian Duta | Romania | $41,565 |
2019 Merit Poker Classic Main Event Final Day Action
Merit Poker Classic 2019 Results
Sixteen players returned at noon local time for the final day of the Merit Poker Classic, with start-of-the-day chip leader Geilich was off to a bad start when he first doubled up Anatoly Suvarov and Duta. Geilich quickly recovered by eliminating Sharar Levi, as well as Pavel Kovalenko. The latter went down with jacks against jacks, where the Scotsman spiked a four-flush to send him out. Despite doubling earlier, Suvarov was next to go when he shoved his last ten big blinds with queen-jack and also fell victim to Geilich who held ace-seven.
However, it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows for the popular Scotsman, and Christoforou started off his ascent towards the eventual victory by doubling through Geilich with a rivered a pair of aces against pocket nines. His stack still consisted of mere crumbs at that point: once the final table kicked off Geilich was holding the chip lead, while Christoforou was the second shortest stack.
Florian Duta and Mustafa Biz were the first to bow out from the ten-handed final table before notable German pro Anton Morgenstern fell in eight. It took three hours of eight-handed play before the German busted in a classic coin flip with ace-king versus Twito's pocket jacks. Selahaddin Bedir also got cooked by Twito, this time with Bedir holding jacks onto to walk into Twito's pocket aces. The blades held up to leave six at dinner with Twito leading.
After dinner, former chip leader Geilich fell to Twito when he ran jack-ten suited into the Israeli's ace-jack and didn't improve. Twito went four for four just five minutes after, taking out Basil Yaiche with eights versus sixes. Holding half the chips in play at that point, Twito ramped up the aggression on the other three, but it was Christoforou that took care of fourth-place finisher Braude to bring the field down to its final three hopefuls.
The three were ready to discuss a deal and agreed to look at the numbers but decided to play out the current hand first before entering negotiations. That decision proved to be crucial for Christoforou who doubled up with pocket queens through Twito to decrease the gap between them. The new state of affairs eventually resulted in a declined deal, which proved unfortunate for Bicknell as she busted out in third by shoving king-six into the ace-ten of Christoforou.
Numbers were once again considered, but no deal was agreed and play continued. The chip lead went back and forth over the span of almost two hours, and Christoforou held the lead when the final hand occurred. Twito shoved with ace-eight. Christoforou called with king-ten suited and turned a flush while avoiding another club on the river which would have given Twito the nut-flush. With the rail and Christoforou himself exploding from happiness, the Merit Poker tournament was over with the home town hero claiming the gold.
This concludes PokerNews live coverage from the Merit Crystal Cove & Hotel in Cyprus. There's plenty more from Merit Poker on the horizon. The next partypoker LIVE tournament is around the corner, when the Playground Poker Club in Montreal will host the partypoker LIVE MILLIONS North America event. PokerNews will be back on the floor to cover all the action.
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The penultimate day of the Merit Poker Classic $5,300 Main Event has come to an end after six levels of 75 minutes have been played and sixteen players have found a bag to tag. partypoker pro Ludovic Geilich claimed the Day 4 chip lead when he bagged 8,080,000 in chips.
The Scottish player scored a huge double-up when he found pocket kings and five-bet shoved for over 4 million and was called by Basil Yaiche who had pocket queens. Geilich is followed by Israel’s Liran Twito who claimed oodles of bust-outs to his name including Pavel Plesuv and Kacper Pyzara. Rounding out the podium is Shahar Levi (7,255,000), who also hails from Israel. After going up and down the chip counts throughout the day, he found a double-up through Twito among other things in the last level of the day to soar to third.
Merit Poker Classic 2019 Winners
Also bagging an above average stack are partypoker pro Kristen Bicknell, who spun it up from just eleven big blind at the start of the day, Basil Yaiche, and the day 1c chip leader Anton Morgenstern. Other more familiar faces who have made it through to the final day include Mustafa Biz, Day 3 chip leader Pavel Kovalenko, Dori Yacoub, Florian Duta, and Andreas Christoforou.
2019 Merit Poker Classic Final Day Seat Draw
| Table | Seat | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | Kristen Bicknell | Canada | 4,980,000 | 50 |
| 1 | 2 | Ulan Dzholdoshbekov | Russia | 3,500,000 | 35 |
| 1 | 3 | Dori Yacoub | Lebanon | 3,120,000 | 31 |
| 1 | 4 | Daniel Braude | Israel | 2,630,000 | 26 |
| 1 | 5 | Hasan Dogan | Turkey | 3,200,000 | 32 |
| 1 | 6 | Mustafa Biz | Turkey | 3,415,000 | 34 |
| 1 | 7 | –empty– | – | ||
| 1 | 8 | Selahaddin Bedir | Turkey | 3,350,000 | 34 |
| 1 | 9 | Anton Morgenstern | Germany | 4,300,000 | 43 |
| 2 | 1 | –empty– | – | ||
| 2 | 2 | Anatoly Suvorov | Russia | 2,200,000 | 22 |
| 2 | 3 | Shahar Levi | Israel | 7,255,000 | 73 |
| 2 | 4 | Liran Twito | Israel | 7,470,000 | 75 |
| 2 | 5 | Ludovic Geilich | United Kingdom | 8,080,000 | 81 |
| 2 | 6 | Andreas Christoforou | Cyprus | 1,700,000 | 17 |
| 2 | 7 | Pavel Kovalenko | Russia | 3,405,000 | 34 |
| 2 | 8 | Florian Duta | Romania | 1,995,000 | 20 |
| 2 | 9 | Basil Yaiche | France | 5,385,000 | 54 |
While day 4 started with 66 players, after a flurry of eliminations in the first stages of the day only 37 remained at the first break. Albert Daher, birthday boy Milad Oghabian, Stoyan Abreshkov, Lachezar Petkov, Uri Reichenstein, day 2 chip leader Sergey Baburin, Vladimir Troyanovskiy, Vlad Darie, and Joey Weissman were some of the bigger names who didn’t get through the first two levels of the day.
Merit Poker Classic 2019 Leaderboard
In the next two levels the pace of bustouts dropped, but the likes of Andrey Pateychuk, Boris Kolev, Elvin Sarkarov, Joep Raemaekers, and Kenny Hallaert were among those that had to part ways. Hallaert managed to catch his flight in time as his pocket eights got beaten by the ace-queen of Daniel Braude, who ended up with the better kicker on a seven-seven-seven-seven-deuce board.
Merit Poker Classic 2019 Winner
Twenty-five players went into the last break of the day and things started slowing down even more. The likes of Dragos Trofimov, Ben Farrell and Manig Loeser, who lost his stack to Bicknell, fell along the way. Daniil Kiselev busted with ace-jack against the eights of Morgenstern, followed by Orhan Ates who was the final elimination of the night. Fittingly, it was Geilich who did him in to bag the overall chip lead.