A telecommunications engineer from Switzerland has made an impact at the right time by taking down the WPTDeepStacks Main Event in Berlin, and Toby Lewis leads the WPT Gardens Poker Championships in California with half a million dollars up for grabs.
It’s January.
The PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA).
The Aussie Millions.
And.
Now.
Methinks it will be a flash in the pan, but the WPT held two events simultaneously, on two different continents, with most of poker’s travelling circus flying between the Bahamas and Melbourne, and their fans didn’t let them down.
The €1,100 WPTDeepStacks (WPTDS) Main Event at the Spielbank Casino in Berlin attracted 645-entrants; good enough to beat the €500,000 Guarantee by €188,215, and a telecommunications engineer from Switzerland won the €129,510 first prize and a €2,000 WPTDS package.
Thomas Hofmann took time off work to attend the WPTDS Main Event in Berlin after playing in the event, and loving life, in 2018. Hofmann didn’t profit during that run, but this win more than makes up for that.
By the time the final table came into view, Hofmann was one of the most experienced players at the final table. Patrick Kubat had made the final table of a World Series of Poker (WSOP) $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em event finishing 6/1819 in 2013 for $75,879. Wojciech Wyrebski had finished 2/2992 in the €550 No-Limit Hold’em Colossus at the 2018 World Series of Poker Europe (WSOPE) earning €125,966, but apart from that, no monsters lurked with chlorine in their hair at the deep end of this thing.
Two years ago, Hofmann finished runner-up to Albert Hoekendijk in the €1,100 No-Limit Hold’em Little One for One Drop in the WSOPE for a career-high €105,532, and he wasn’t about to make the same mistake when he took a 12m v 7m chip advantage into heads-up against the inexperienced Eldaras Rafijevas.
Rafijevas did bring the stacks to an even keel, but never took the chip lead. In the final hand, Rafijevas moved all-in holding pocket treys, and Hofman called and eliminated him holding AJ after an ace appeared on the flop during the deck’s five-card Mexican wave.
The win takes Hofmann to the brink of $1m in live tournament earnings, and this was his 15th career win.
Final Table Results
1. Thomas Hofmann – €129,510*
2. Eldaras Rafijevas – €83,720
3. Patrick Kubat – €61,700
4. Sebastian Trisch – €45,895
5. Alexandru Cinca – €34,660
6. Andreas Mitsch – €26,425
7. Wojciech Wyrebski – €20,380
8. Thorsten Fleischhut – €15,905
9. Brian Cornell – €12,560
*Includes a season-ending €2k package
Next up for the WPT on European soil is their Russian debut in Sochi Jan 21 – 27. Stateside, the $10,000 WPT Gardens Poker Championships pulled in 253-entrants, not bad considering most $10,000 players were in the Bahamas, and at the time of writing the former European Poker Tour (EPT) Main Event winner, and reigning Aussie Millions Main Event winner, has the chip lead with 33-entrants remaining in the slugfest with half a million dollars up top.
