Covrig Wins and Kabrhel Leads High Roller at WSOP Europe

No news is good news in the Czech Republic. As long as the nation’s government doesn’t impose any new restrictions, King’s Casino won’t have to change anything regarding the WSOP Europe schedule. Keep fingers crossed that the series can finish smoothly. Only one week remains in the 2021 series.

A reminder: PokerGO will stream the final table of Event 10 for free today (thanks to Club GG) on PokerGO’s website. It will begin at 12:30pm ET – or approximately 6:30pm Czech time, if Google’s time zone translator is to be believed.

Event 9: €1,100 NLHE Bounty Hunter

It took longer than anticipated. The turbo structure was supposed to allow this event to play out in one day. But the first night went so long that the tournament director called it. Six players had to return for a second day.

Tim Novotny led the final six, with Michael Strauch and Pablo Finini trailing. Sergiu Covrig was in a close fourth on the leaderboard. One of the short stacks, Nicola D’Anselmo, busted to Covrig in the very first hand of Day 2. The other, Romain Le Dantec, doubled through Covrig to stay alive, though Covrig doubled right back through him. When they tangled again, Covrig busted Le Dantec.

Novotny eliminated Finini, but Strauch doubled through Novotny. Strauch then ousted Novotny in third place. He took 12.55M chips into head-up play, with Covrig holding 5.6M. Soon after it started, though, Covrig doubled through to take the lead. Strauch then risked it with A-3 against the 9-7 suited of Covrig. A nine on the turn gave it to Covrig.

The 35-year-old poker pro became only the second Romanian in WSOP history to win a gold bracelet. “The bracelet means a lot,” Covrig said. “In the end, we started playing for the bracelet, and I am very happy I won.”

Sergiu Covrig became the lastest gold bracelet winner at the 2021 @WSOP Europe after he bested a field of 604 entries in Event #9: €1,100 NLH Bounty Hunter.

He got his hands on his first piece of WSOP hardware as well as the €79,282 top prize. https://t.co/UmgW8L3HDV

— PokerNews (@PokerNews) November 30, 2021

Event 10: €25K NLHE Platinum High Roller

Another 20 entries kicked off Day 2 of this tournament, bringing the total of entries to 72 and the prize pool to more than €1.6M, well beyond the €1M guarantee. But the high stakes meant fewer players to be paid. Paul Phua was one of several who busted just short of the money. Matas Cimbolas was the actual bubble player, though Andrea Ricci busted in the same hand and took home €43,090 for 11^th place. Tom Vogelsang followed in tenth, and Fahredin Mustafov departed in ninth for €48,620.

That set the final table of eight to play out on Wednesday. Martin Kabrhel leads the pack and chases his third WSOP bracelet, as the table is set to start play late in the day. This is for the PokerGO livestream to cover it and broadcast it for free.

Event 11: €1,650 NLHE 6-Max

More than 500 entries put this event’s prize pool well over €700K, more than three times the guarantee. Play moved quickly, though, leaving only 91 players by the end of the night. Ten of those players will return on Day 2 and bubble the money portion of the event, but the rest will cash out. Previous bracelet winners in the group of Day 1 survivors included chipleader Kacper Pyzara, and Renat Bohdanov and Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier in the top ten.