April 09 2011, Chris Hall

The final 24 players of the PokerStars.net European Poker Tour Berlin returned Saturday for the penultimate day of play. The field was led by Daniel Pidun with 2.429 million, just ahead of Max Heinzelmann and PokerStars Online Qualifier Ben Wilinofsky. After about nine hours of play, however, Wilinofsky emerged with the chip lead and will be leading the final tablists on Sunday.

Wilinofsky made all the early running on the feature table winning a race with jacks against Gerado Muro’s , and then never needed to look back. He then eliminated Markus Grewe, getting the German to move all-in on a flop of with when the Canadian youngster had flopped a set of nines. Without much trouble, Wilinofsky had almost doubled his stack in just one level and was the first player to surpass the 4 million mark.

Meanwhile on the other table, Team PokerStars Pro Henrique Pinho had an rough start, losing a chunk of his stack in the very first hand of the day, when he doubled up Jonas Gutteck with , no good against the German player’s . Pinho was eliminated in 20th place, his best ever finish, when his came unstuck against Max Heinzelmann’s in a pot worth about 1.2 million chips.

Heizelmann gradually began to dominate the outer table in a similar way to Wilinofsky’s total control of the TV table. Heizelmann opened a lot of pots and it became hard for others, such as double EPT runner-up Martin Jacobson, and the end of Day 2 chip leader Fabrice Soulier, to get a foothold.

Konstantin Puchkov, who placed third at EPT Barcelona was eliminated in 17th place, when he ran pocket eights into Jonas Gutteck’s pocket aces, while Jeffrey Hakim quickly followed him out of the door in 16th. Kristijonas Andrulis, who won two side events in Tallinn and another in Vilamoura, went out in 12th place after he lost a race to Martin Jacobson. Jacobson has managed to make his third final table of this EPT season alone, an incredible feat in its own right, but he must be thinking that this should be his time.

Just before the dinner break, Fabrice Soulier was knocked out in 11th. He committed his stack with on a flop against Vadzim Kursevich’s but the board bricked out with the turn and river and a very disappointed Frenchman was sent to the rail.

Refreshed and rejuvenated after a 90-minute break, the final ten players returned to play. Ten minutes later, after Cuello Jorge Mariano’s push with was called by Heinzelmann’s and failed to spike, we were down to a single table.

The final table bubble can be a long and drawn out affair, lasting several hours as a dynamic sets in and players vie for control of the table.

Not this time.

It only took 15 minutes for Armin Mette to be dealt when former chip leader Daniel Pidun had picked up and the two didn’t take long to put all the chips into the middle. Pidun was covered and it looked dead and buried when the flop came but it got very interesting on the turn. Pidun just needed the board to pair to complete a miraculous comeback but the river was the and the German was our final-table bubbler.

EPT Berlin Final Table

It’s set to be an exiting climax Sunday. Can Wilinofsky make his first ever live cash an EPT victory? Could Martin Jacobson, on his third EPT final table this season, finally break his duck? For the answers to all these questions, tune into the Live Reporting page for the EPT Berlin final table coverage beginning at 12 p.m. CEST (0300 PDT).

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April 08 2011, Jen Mason

The third day of play at the Spielbank Berlin brought the number of players remaining in the €5,000 European Poker Tour Berlin Main Event down from 119 hopefuls to just 24. Leading the field is Daniel Pidun with 2,429,000 chips, while ten players return with over a million. The next to leave the Main Event will do so with €20,000 in prize money, and by Saturday night the final table will be determined.

All 119 players returned Friday afternoon with the security of having already cashed and maybe this contributed to the early all-in frenzy. The first to be eliminated today received €7,500; the last person to fall short of Day 4 – Anton Thotatinsson – received €17,500. Cashing for the second time in a row on the EPT circuit was Team PokerStars SportStar Fatima Moreira de Melo who could not develop her short stack and joined Paco Torres, Jack Ellwood, Sam Chartier and Team Pro Sebastian Ruthenberg on the rail in the opening levels. Also finishing in the money were the top three players from EPT Snowfest: Vladimir Geshkenbein, Kevin Vandersmissen and Koen De Visscher.

In contrast, Maximilian Heinzelmann, who started the day in 91st place, clawed his way to second place (2,140,000) by the time the final hand was over. Anton Morgenstern also made a bid for the chip lead eliminating Felix Schulze in one of the biggest pots from early in the day, winning a queens versus ace-king flip to jump over the million-chip mark. He busted to Ben Wilinofsky late in the day, however, and Wilinofsky now sits in third with 2,046,000.

All the experience of a pro with a knack for the comeback did not stop George Danzer from exiting in 26th place after a roller coaster day in which the deck ran alternately hot and cold for the popular Team Pro. Start of day chip leader Fabrice Soulier’s stack also dwindled during his lengthy stint on the feature table, down to 890,000 as he prepares for Day 4. There’s no shortage of experienced players left in the field, although all prior EPT champions and all but two PokerStars Team Pros (Henrique Pinho and Joep van den Bijgaart) are now in the side events.

Among the players who’ve consistently been in the thick of the action today are young, aggressive Lithuanian Kristijonas Andrulis (1,650,000 chips) and Martin Jacobson, whose EPT cash list sports two runner-up finishes (both this season) and one third place. He’ll be looking to make the final for a chance to better this already impressive achievement.

After tables had broken speedily all day, the last stage (28 players down to 24) was a more contemplative, hard-fought affair, and the final table bubble could not help but raise the tension of all the players in the room, and slow them down accordingly. The pace was further slowed by the fact that “all in and call” has to be shouted whenever it occurs and the hands frozen so that their holders’ expressions may be captured on film for posterity. Meanwhile the heads-up, €2,000 and €1,000 events continued to pack every inch of the Spielbank.

Drifting into the weekend brings no rest for these 24 players. They return Saturday at 1 p.m. CEST (0400 PDT) to start the penultimate leg of the EPT Berlin Main Event journey: the climb to the final table. Join PokerNews for live coverage throughout the day, and check out the video below to meet some of the team behind the tournament.

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