October 07 2011, Donnie Peters

At the previous stop on Season 8 of the PokerStars.com European Poker Tour, Phillip Gruissem defeated a field of 58 to take down the “10,000 High Roller event for “234,500. In that event, he defeated a final table that included Sami Kelopuro, Steve O’Dwyer and Team PokerStars Pro Leo Fernandez. After Thursday’s finale in the EPT London £20,000 High Roller, Gruissem is right back in the winner’s circle after defeating Igor Kurganov heads up.

At the start of the day, Gruissem sat seventh in chips out of the final eight players. He was only ahead of Michael Tureniec from Sweden, but that didn’t seem to stop him. After Tureniec busted on the first hand of play, Gruissem went chip hunting and was able to chip up a little bit through Rob Akery.

Shortly after that, Sam Trickett went out in seventh place at the hands of Kurganov, who increased his chip lead with the elimination. Then, just before the blinds went up, Gruissem busted Joel Nordkvist in sixth place.

According to the PokerStars Blog, Nordkvist raised to 20,000 with the blinds at 5,000/10,000 with a 1,000 ante. Gruissem reraised to 48,000 and then Nordkvist announced that he was all-in. Gruissem called holding and was up against Nordkvist’s . The flop, turn and river ran out and Nordkvist was eliminated.

Gruissem also eliminated Adrian Bussman in fifth place. With the final board reading , Bussman bet 96,000. Gruissem took some time and then raised all-in, putting Bussman to the test. After a minute or two in the tank, Bussman made the call with the for trip fives. He was outdone by Gruissem’s for a full house and eliminated.

The players had struck a deal when four-handed play began and the details were as follows.

They made sure to leave some money on the table to play for, which was as follows.

From there, Olivier Busquet went out in fourth place and Akery in third. With the heads-up battle set between Gruissem and Kurganov, it was Kurganov who held the lead with approximately 2.4 million in chips to 1.35 million. Gruissem fought back to take the lead and pull ahead of his competitor before the final hand came up.

Kurganov moved all-in from the button with the on the short stack. Gruissem made the call from the big blind holding the . Although Kurganov flopped a six to give him a pair, his hand was no good on the final board of and he was eliminated in second place.

Final Table Payouts

This high-roller win is the second for Gruissem within about a month to continue the great success he’s had in 2011. Back in April, Gruissem took third in the EPT Berlin “10,000 High Roller for “67,000. During the summer, he had a very deep run in the World Series of Poker Main Event and finished in 28th place for $242,636.

The next stop on Season 8 of the PokerStars.com EPT will be Loutraki, Greece in November. The Main Event takes place Nov. 15 through 20, 2011 and PokerNews will be on hand to provide live coverage. For more information about the event, check out the tournament’s page.

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August 27 2011, Donnie Peters

Day 1a of the 2011 PokerStars.com European Poker Tour Barcelona Main Event wrapped up on Saturday after nine levels of play. A starting field of 346 players came out, and at the end of the day, the field was whittled down to around 200 with Martin Schleich on top holding 182,100 in chips.

There were plenty of notable players in the field including a number Team PokerStars Pros Lex Veldhuis, Johnny Lodden, Martin Hruby, Juan Maceiras and Sandra Naujoks. Unfortunately, they all failed to make it through the day, as was Ana Marquez, the newest member to Team PokerStars Pro.

In Marquez’s bust-out hand, a player who ended up not factoring into the showdown opened with a raise, and Erik van den Berg flatted in the cutoff. In the small blind, Marquez came along, and it was three-handed to the flop.

The dealer spread out the flop and the action checked to van den Berg. He put out a bet of 1,500, and the initial raiser folded without incident. Marquez check-raised to 5,000, and van den Berg promptly reraised to put her to the decision for her full stack. She eventually made the call with , looking to fill in the combo draw to stay alive. Van den Berg, holding , flopped top set to put him in front.

The turn was a very bad card for Marquez, giving van den Berg the full house and leaving Marquez dead to the one-out . The river was a blank, though, and Marquez was sent packing.

On the other side of the coin, a few of the Team PokerStars Pros to thrive were Vanessa Selbst, Andre Akkari and Ville Wahlbeck.

Selbst gained a lot of her chips when she clashed with Domantas Klimciauskas. Selbst five-bet shipped with and got there against Klimciauskas’ pocket kings after an ace flopped. From there, she won another big pot with her own pocket kings against Martial Blangenwitsch’s . All of the money went in on a flop of . The turn and river both blanked and moved Selbst into the early chip lead. She went on to finish the day with 81,500.

A few other notable players able to advance to Day 2 are Mickey Petersen, Chris Moorman, Bryn Kenney, Ivan Freitez and Leo Margets. They’ll have the day off on Sunday while Day 1b is going on before returning back to action on Monday.

Day 1b will begin Sunday at noon CEST (0300 PDT) in beautiful Barcelona, Spain. Another nine levels are on the slate and the field is expected to be much larger than Saturday’s, hopefully growing the full field size to over 800 entrants.

Some of the players who will be in action Sunday include Daniel Negreanu, Jason Mercier, Allen Bari, Phil Collins and Eugene Katchalov. You won’t want to miss any action from those poker superstars so be sure to stay tuned to the PokerNews Live Reporting pages for all the coverage.

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