The ‘Green Metropolis’ of Westphalia, Dortmund, was the latest setting of the European Poker Tour. Formerly a city known for its coal and steel as part of the Ruhr industrial area, Dortmund has, since the end of the second World War, been transformed into a place surrounded by woodlands and parks. Casino Hohensyburg, the actual setting for the German Open tournament, is delightfully situated on top of a hill on the very fringe of the city, whilst forests take up the view in seemingly all directions.

      Last year’s event was won by Andreas Hoivold in a Scandinavian-dominated final table, though this time he would exit at the end of Day 1B, all in with kings against a fellow finalist from last year, Nicolas Levi, who held ace-queen and managed to hit all three remaining bullets in the deck for quads.

    The real talking point for many people at this €8,000 buy-in tournament was to be the debut of EPT sponsor PokerStars’ new ‘ambassador’, Boris Becker, but sadly for all those interested in seeing how he would do, it was declared that Boris was ill and therefore would not be playing this time. Meanwhile, the poker world still waits to see how the former tennis champion will manage the transition.

      Charbot Cyrille ended the first day as chip leader, but there were familiar faces all the way down the remaining 149 players from the initial 411 who had started. Daniel Negreanu, Annette Obrestad, Markus Golser and Marcel Luske were all amongst the upper echelons of the counts, whilst former EPT winner Mats Iremark was also in with a shout. On the flip side of the coin, former champions Julian Thew and Arnaud Mattern could not repeat their previous heroics, whilst online stars Dario Minieri and Sorel Mizzi also failed to make it to the second day.  

Second and Third Days

Topsy-turvy hands were the order of the second day as ‘home’ players Cort Kibler-Melby and Tobias Reinkemeier clashed with 7-7 and A-Q respectively. The flop was not a pretty one for the former as it came A-J-J, but as he got up to go, the turn came a 7 and suddenly the future was once again rosy...for about three seconds because the river was a cruel jack, making Tobias a higher full house. Who says live poker is not rigged?

      The biggest pot of the second day landed squarely at the feet of 18-year-old Canadian online star Mike ‘Timex’ McDonald, his K-Q triumphing against Mats Iremark’s J-J. The big pot pushed Timex – who was 14th at the recent EPT Prague – into the chip lead. Meanwhile, the poor bubble boy turned out to be Stefan Wrenger, who held tens on a Q-10-3 flop against Brandon Schafer’s queen-ten, only for Brandon to turn a brutal one-outer and make queens-full (the other queen later revealed to having been folded by another player earlier in the hand).

      Karmic fate addressed this beat on Day 3, though, as Brandon would suffer his own horrible downfall, which occurred in three simple stages. Firstly, aces cracked by a short stack’s 4-3, which made a straight, leaving the aces drawing dead on the turn. Next, Brandon held A-J of hearts on an ace-high all-spade board against the same player, whom he set in on the flop and was called by 10-10. The flush came and he was once again drawing dead on the turn. Now short-stacked himself, he pushed with A-3, only for the small blind not to see the move, but having already announced ‘Call’ with his K-9, was made to call the push. You can guess what happened next – at least this time he  wasn’t drawing dead on the turn.

    Dan Carter scored a big coup getting all in with aces against Chris Rossiter’s queens and Marcel Cesarz’s jacks, and more importantly, getting them to hold up. However, a short while later, with only a dozen players left, Mike McDonald raised from the button, Daniel Ryan pushed from the small blind with A-2, but Carter had picked up queens in the big blind. A fatal bullet hit on the river, however, giving Ryan the win with aces, and the last Brit in the tournament was out soon after.

      But what comes around, goes around, as within an hour Ryan would be in a very similar situation, only this time he held jacks against Johannes Strassmann’s dominated A-J, but once again, that bullet would appear to cause a fatal wound to yet another player. Strassmann would then knock out the TV bubbler Alexander Milanov with jacks against fours to make the final table: 

Seat 1: Mike McDonald     862,000

Seat 2: Diego Perez     744,000

Seat 3: Thibaut Durand     148,000

Seat 4: Johannes Strassmann     827,000

Seat 5: Christian Harder     339,000

Seat 6: Andreas Gülünay     560,000

Seat 7: Torsten Haase     369,000

Seat 8. Claudio Rinaldi     276,000

      An interesting final table for sure. Strassmann had made the final of Prague, whilst his co-chip leader McDonald made the last two tables there also and had since won an Aussie Millions side event and made two other final tables Down Under. These two, along with PokerStars Caribbean Adventure finalist Christian Harder (a Stars qualifier), were the form players, and it seemed as though one of them would be the eventual winner of the €900,000 first prize. 

Wild Action

Many final tables can be slow, or disappointing, but this one started off at a  frenetic pace, with constant three- and four-betting, as no pot seemed to go uncontested. Strassmann and McDonald were using their stacks well as they applied maximum pressure to shorter-stacked players who may have just been hoping to ladder up for a better payday. Christian Harder, however, was not one of these players, but could do nothing when his A-K ran slap-bang straight into McDonald’s aces, giving the American an eighth-place finish worth €85,500 to add to the $200,000 he picked up at the PCA less than a month before.

      Thibaut Durand would exit next, his micro-stacked A-4 no use against Strassmann’s eights. This meant the French would not be having a third EPT winner on the bounce.

    As the play became short-handed, most hands tended not only to be raised, but the resteal became increasingly commonplace. Indeed, Claudio Rinaldi kept pushing against Andreas Gülünay’s raises and getting them through to push himself up the leaderboard. Other players looked to do the same, but Strassmann suddenly got caught with his fingers in the till as he moved in over the top of Mike McDonald’s raise with 8-7 suited, only to find that the teenage Canadian had the goods this time with a pair of kings. A third cowboy on the flop and Strassmann, who is sponsored by PokerStars, was already shaking hands and wishing good luck to the remaining players.

      Rinaldi’s three-bet all ins continued to work, but it was only a matter of time before someone got impatient and gave him a spin. His old sparring partner Gülünay was that man, holding sevens against Rinaldi’s A-9. The sevens held, leaving four players, but even more crazy coin-flips were about to take place. McDonald raised to 75k, and Diego Perez moved in for roughly 600k more, about half of McDonald’s stack, but the Canadian somehow found a call with a lowly pair of deuces, ahead of the Spaniard’s J-10, which was the way it stayed.

      No sooner had the dust settled than Gülünay, Torsten Haase and McDonald saw a Q-5-3 flop together. Haase bet 150k and McDonald moved in. Gülünay got out of the way and Haase – a German backgammon player – made the call with A-5, but his timing was off as McDonald was holding K-Q, which sent one German to the rail and left the Canadian with 4.2 million chips against Andreas’ 850,000.

    True enough, the heads-up was short, sharp and brutal. McDonald raised to 80k, Andreas called and they saw a K-7-J flop. Andreas checked, Mike bet 100k and Andreas made it 300k. The teenager made the call, before calling another 300k bet after a king hit the turn. A blank deuce hit the river, and Andreas moved in. Mike quickly called, showing A-K.

      It was enough as Andreas mucked his hand to leave the Waterloo, Ontario, native – known online as ‘Timex’ – as the youngest-ever winner of an EPT title at just 18 years old. He had busted five players at the final table on his way to the €933,600 victory.

    McDonald, who studied a year at the University of Waterloo, Canada’s top math and engineering college, took up poker after his chess teacher told him it was a good way to make a living. He said: “I’m pretty happy with the way it’s all worked out. Obviously, I start all tournaments thinking I could win them or I wouldn’t play them! Today was good though – when I had big hands, they gave me their chips.”

    McDonald is known for using some of his winnings to back top online players. No doubt he will be backing a few more now.