The second and penultimate day of the 10-year anniversary edition of the Unibet Open Main Event at the luxurious JW Marriott Bucharest Grand Hotel saw 114 players out of a 502-entry strong field return to the tables in the Romanian capital. All aimed to take home a share of the €486,940 prize pool, but only the top 71 spots were paid with a few big names missing out on something to show for.
Ultimately, only remaining 10 players bagged up at 1 a.m. local time with 30 minutes left in level 22 at blinds of 15,000/30,000 with a running ante of 5,000, and that’s where they will continue as of noon local time on Sunday, December 3rd 2017, in order to determine a new champion of the popular live event series. The finalists are guaranteed €7,920 for their efforts and a payday of €90,925 awaits for the winner.
Israel’s Avi Cohen leads the charge with 2,750,000 followed by Bojan Zidar (2,425,000) from Slovenia, and Croatia’s Pavao Veza rounds out the international top three with 2,025,000. Three Romanians are still in contention to keep the tropy in the home country and follow into the foot steps of 2016 Bucharest winner Traian Bostan: Christopher Heidelbacher (1,510,000) and Marius Pertea (1,460,000) are in the middle of the pack while Bogdan Ionescu (639,000) is the short stack. The other finalists include Henrik Tellving (1,425,000), Guy Ohayon (1,315,000), Dor Lan (805,000) and Robert Vukovic (725,000).
Seat Assignments for the Final Day
| Table | Seat | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | Marius Pertea | Romania | 1,460,000 | 49 |
| 1 | 4 | Christopher Heidelbacher | Romania | 1,510,000 | 50 |
| 1 | 5 | Pavao Veza | Croatia | 2,025,000 | 67 |
| 1 | 6 | Bojan Zidar | Slovenia | 2,425,000 | 81 |
| 1 | 7 | Bogdan Ionescu | Romania | 639,000 | 21 |
| 2 | 1 | Robert Vukovic | Croatia | 725,000 | 24 |
| 2 | 2 | Dor Lan | Israel | 805,000 | 27 |
| 2 | 5 | Guy Ohayon | Israel | 1,315,000 | 44 |
| 2 | 8 | Avi Cohen | Israel | 2,750,000 | 91 |
| 2 | 9 | Henrik Tellving | Sweden | 1,425,000 | 47 |
Action of the Day
Tom Vogelsang jumped into the top spot right away within the first few minutes and remained at the top of the counts for a long time. Other notables such as Martin von Zweigbergk, Age Spets, Catalin Pop, €2,200 High roller runner-up Katsuhiro Muto and David Lappin were less fortunate and all bowed out before the money. Unibet Poker ambassador Lappin three-bet and eventually five-bet with pocket kings to get called by pocket jacks, Yasen Dichev turned a jack and that was it for the Irishman. Jose Luis Capdevila also busted before the money and Zion Mashiah ended up as the bubble boy when calling the shove of Vinod Jadav for his last four big blinds with ace-jack. Jadav had pocket queens and there was no upset to let the bubble burst.
Ran Azor was among the first to head to the payout desk after his ace-queen was no good, Andrei Grimberg‘s kings instantly flopped a full house. The Unibet Poker eSports Star Kevin "Papaplatte" Teller followed soon after when his ace-king suited flopped top pair and turned the nut flush only to fall right into the trap of Jan-Willem Nijmeijer, who called in a heart beat with pocket aces for a well-hidden flopped full house – Keller took home €1,880 for his 66th place finish.
Tudor Purice (61st, for €2,105) and Unibet Poker ambassador Dara O’Kearney (55th, for €2,105) were eliminated in the next payout step. Purice ran with queens into kings and O’Kearney departed when his ace-queen was no good against eventual chip leader Avi Cohen with ace-king. Other notables that were sent to the payouts before the dinner break include Stephane Allard (45th, for €2,355), Day 1b chip leader Marian Strachinescu (39th, for €2,640), and Eric Wasylenko (37th, for €2,640).
Two-time Unibet Open champion Dan Murariu, who also reached the final table another three times including the 6th place finish in 2016 here in Bucharest, was eventually ousted in 30th place this time around. Murariu survived the money bubble as one of the short stacks before finding the right gear, but a four-bet shove with pocket eights saw him end up second-best to the ace-queen suited of Tom Vogelsang. While the chips changed their owners quite frequently after to set up the last two tables, that was nothing compared to the very end of Day 2.
In an amazing turn of events, the tides changed dramatically in the last two levels of the night. Both Tom Vogelsang and Yasen Dichev dominated at the top of the counts with more than two million chips each before everything fell apart. Bojan Zidar was left with fewer than eight big blinds on the secondary table after running with ace-king into aces. He then tripled up, sent Joris Hermans to the rail, doubled through Vogelsang and knocked out the Dutchman soon after with yet another successful flip.
On the live stream table, Dichev was rivered by Henrik Tellving, lost a big flip to Avi Cohen and busted in a three-way all in against Tellving minutes later. Teun Herman and Vogelsang both busted at the same time on different tables to reduce the field to the last ten and split the two prizes as there was a pay jump between them. Soon after it was time for bagging and tagging, and getting some fresh air after an action-filled end to the day.
That’s it for tonight, and the PokerNews live reporting team will be back for the final day to provide all the action until a winner is crowned.
