Local hero Mauri Dorbek has done it! After a gruelling final day in which many different players held the chip lead it was Dmitry Varlamov who seemed to be heading towards his second Unibet Open title, but nobody was stopping Dorbek who dominated and kept the trophy in Estonia!
The first ever Unibet Open in Estonia was a great success as 262 players showed up, among which former winners Paul Valkenburg, Peter Harkes, Mateusz Moolhuien and the aforementioned Varlamov. EPT Barcelona runner-up Kimmmo Kurko and Finnish poker legend Juha Helppi also made the trip to Tallinn but neither managed to make waves.
After getting down to 15 players on the second day of play, the final day proved to be a very daunting one. Former Troia winner Varlamov wasn’t phased by it however, as he managed to knock out four players in the early goings. While Varlamov was chipping up, and took the chip lead, the player in second place at the start, Ranno Sootla, lost almost every pot he entered. Sootla busted out in 14th place.
A few hours later the final table was reached and here is how the stacked up.
Seat 1 – Adam Magnusson – 360,000
Seat 2 – Robert Sevtsenko – 812,000
Seat 3 – Vladimir Fedorov – 435,000
Seat 4 – Dmitry Varlamov – 2,825,000
Seat 5 – Lauri Meidla – 234,000
Seat 6 – Andrejs Perederejevs – 1,645,000
Seat 7 – Juha Rasku – 455,000
Seat 8 – Mauri Dorbek – 737,000
Seat 9 – Rein Koov – 314,000
At the beginning of the final table it was the Varlamov show, as the Russian pro won most of the pots and extended his lead constantly. Vladimir Federov was the first to go in ninth place, followed by Juha Rasku in eighth, both knocked out by the chip leader. Adam Magnusson was knocked out in sevent, Rein Koov in sixth and up until that point Varlamov still held the lead.
Robert Sevtsenko was knocked out in fifth place by Varlamvo extending his lead, which gave him almost two thirds of the chips in play with four players remaining. Lauri Meidla was unlucky to bust in fourth place as he hit the rail after losing with king-queen versus Andrejs Perederejevs’ king-jack. Perederejevs double through Varlamov a little while later, but the Russian kept the lead, even after that.
On one of the biggest hands, during three-handed play, it was Perederejevs who ended up all in holding ace-jack against Dorbek’s ace-queen and the latter’s hand held up. On the very next hand Perederejevs was knocked out, and the heads up battle kicked off!
The heads-up battle was very one-sided, as Dorbek took down most of the pots. Varlamov was in lots of trouble with his dwindling stack, and the first all in spelled disaster right away. Varlamov ended up all in holding queen-seven against Dorbek’s nines and that was it!
Varlamov came very close to winning his second title, but ultimately it was Dorbek who ran off with the trophy and a €55,000 check.
