The 53 entries into this tight tournament, which took place on December 1, 2024, resulted in just 7 prizes. First place was worth $82,342, while 7th place was worth $11,532.
Final table composition and stacks:
Neymar "neymar-jr" (Brazil) – 122bb
Pascal "Pass_72" Lefrancois (Canada) – 112bb
Talal "raidalot" Shakerchi (United Kingdom) – 51bb
P0KERPR02.0 (Austria) – 40bb
Alex "I Attack95" Kulev (Bulgaria) – 40bb
Pedro "PadiLhA SP" Padilha (Brazil) – 33bb
Gavin "gavz101" Cochrane (United Kingdom) – 20bb
Dominique "Bounatirou" Nitsche (United Kingdom) – 11bb
Samuel "€urop€an" Vousden (Finland) – 9bb
Seating arrangement
In the first minutes of the final, Neymar highly valued the opportunity to enter the hand first. From a late position, he opened and took the pot without resistance with J4s, and in the blinds against the ultra-short Vousden, he played for stack with A6o and tied with A5o. And when Pascal Lefrancois made the second raise in a row, preventing the amateur from stealing the blinds of professionals, it was clear that the chip leader was about to call him. And so it happened.
Neymar reraises to 10.1bb and Lefrancois, with his favorite solver hand makes, not a 4-bet, not a call, but a fold. Old school regs know how to deal with weak aces!
Dominik Nitsche's decision is noteworthy – with a stack of seven blinds, he makes the call! Lefrancois also comes in. On the flop different Neymar takes the pot with a continuation bet. Nitsche manages to dodge the bullet.
Vousden also knows that all-ins are outdated and plays according to the modern meta.
Everyone but the anonymous Austrian folds, and Vousden casually doubles up with the nut flush.
Both very weak and very strong hands come to see the flop after Kulev raises! Cochrane folds in the BB, three in the pot.
Flop (8.13bb):
Kulev bets 1.5 bb – less than 20% of the pot. Shakerchi check-raises to 6.4 bb with two top pairs. It is possible that the Bulgarian super pro also watches replays of finals (or – to save time – reads about them on GT), and is aware of Shakerchi's habit of calling with After thinking for a moment, he throws his top pair into the fold.
In the next hand, having succumbed to the nitty-gritty virus, Namer, still the big chip leader, openfolded A6o.
Nietzsche, who became the shortest, pushes six KTo (he's not in trend, what kind of all-in is that?), gets a call from Shakerchi catches a king on the flop and increases his stack to 12bb.
In the next hand, Vousden gets a chance to fly out before the prizes.
However, the opponent saves him with a disciplined pass.
A small masterpiece from two top players.
Preflop, Nitsche called a min-raise. On the flop, Vousden made a continuation bet of 1 big blind, and his opponent floated. The turn was checked. And on the river, Nitsche moved all-in.
Vousden thinks for a long time, then finally finds a call. His opponent is eliminated in 9th place, the bubble begins.
Vousden in the BB versus the button doubles PokerPro, A5o < AKo, 12 blinds remaining.
Less than a full revolution later and still with a shortstack, he makes a hard raise-fold against Shakerchi.
Neymar defends the BB, calls a 1.5bb continuation bet on the flop. On the turn, both check, and the river is interesting.
Shakerchi thinks about the sizing for a long time and re-raises to 11.5 bb. Neymar quickly calls and loses the lead for the first time – Lefrancois and the opponent in the hand pass him.
Is there a call? On the bubble? Vousden is sure yes, of course, a simple call. The flop comes , and the Finn goes all-in first. It's a classic move from the 2000s – stop-and-go.
Shakerchi makes a pretty impressive call with a king high, no draw hand pretty quickly and gets on top with 52%. The turn is a blank, the river is a deuce, and Vousden mockingly doubles up.
Beautiful.
Shakerchi defends the BB against a 2.5bb raise. Both check the flop and turn. On the river, Talal decides to take his K-high? Just bets because he checked for so long? It's hard to say. Vousden decides not to think about his opponent's motives and uses a power move – a raise. Shakerchi rethinks things and folds.
In general, Vousden is not shy about turning marginal hands into ones that can be overbetted with, using the “check flop, check turn” technique.
The additional one and a half pot gets paid instantly.
Neymar shows a blatant ignorance of modern poker trends and folds 69s. Who will introduce him to the realities of today's game?
Cochrane shoves eights from first position, Shakerchi covers him with KQo in the big blind but doesn't improve. After this short stack doubling, the six shortest players at the table are all in the 18bb to 25bb range.
Let's give credit to the class of the second Brazilian – he thinks for a long time and folds his sevens. The hand ends with Lefrancois small ace and folding to a 3-bet of 5 bb.
Vousden is being naughty with an overbet again.
Judging by the size of the pot, it's easy to guess that the players checked the flop and turn. We can assume that Vousden's big bet is putting pressure on pocket pairs below the jack, but we can't rule out that modern regulars are defending even tighter. Lefrancois thinks for quite a while with two top pairs, then finally calls.
Neymar can't seem to win a hand in a row. He tries to steal the blinds again, but Kulev calls in the BB, leads on a low flop, and the Brazilian footballer can't do anything about it.
The misadventures continue. Luckily for Neymar, his opponent decides to move on to the next hand quickly and raises to 6bb. Lefrancois may think that there is no fold equity with this sizing, but Neymar has a different opinion and immediately folds.
Neymar defends the BB, misses the flop once again and starts to rape the position for the first time in this final:
While call.
Turn (14bb):
Both opponents hit draws. Neymar bets 7bb, Kulev calls.
River:
A lightning-fast call, and Kulev takes the lead, while Neymar drops to the penultimate line in the list. At the beginning of the final table, he is the chip leader with a stack of 120 bb, and now it is a matter of not being knocked out without a prize!
Vousden shoves 8.5bb from the small blind with Q3s, gets called by A4o, and dutifully doubles up for a flush. He now has enough chips to put Gavin Cochrane in the bubble in a few minutes:
The second Brazilian remains the shortest. Soon he gets two sevens in the BB. Everyone folds, Kulev goes all-in from the small blind and after a call shows a very good hand – KTo. The flop is a king, and Pedro Padilha is eliminated seventh.
Neymar's latest hand: an untimely resteal.
Kulev folds, Poker Pro calls. The threes don't improve, and Neymar ends the fight in 6th place.
A brazen, disrespectful check-raise on a continuation bet from Poker Pro leaves the Bulgarian out of action:
The final table's viewership drops with Neymar out, but that's when the real poker begins – there's no need to outlast someone who can give you a hand. Vousden limps from the small blind with KTo and calls a 3.5bb raise. On the flop with AJ, he checks and pays a small continuation bet. Turn:
And here the Finnish player does not give up – call again!
River – . Kulev doesn't dare to bluff again on repeat, especially since there is a small chance to win at showdown. A check follows, and Vusden takes a decent bank on kicker!
Next to go is the last amateur, Talal Shakerchi. Lefrancois attacks from the small blind, raising to 2.5bb. Shakerchi has 16 blinds and A5o. He moves all-in, but his opponent calls with , and the pair remains stronger after the river.
Vousden vs. Kulev. Preflop: limp – check. Funny flop:
1bb on the flop is a tempting call. Turn is . 75% of the pot is a tempting call. River is . They lured him in. Vousden bets 75% of the pot again, gets an instant call and probably a portion of Bulgarian curses.
Next hand:
Judging by the speed of the shove, Kulev had not yet cooled down emotionally by that time. In principle, it is unlikely that emotions influenced his decisions, it was just bad luck... bad luck for Lefrancois – the Canadian made a call with nines and lost to an ace on the flop.
After this tournament, nines are unlikely to become Pascal Lefrancois's favourite hand.
An obvious all-in from the button with . Obvious call with The board is uneventful and three remain in the game, including Samuel "€urop€an" Vousden, who started the final table with just nine blinds. But why lose them when you can avoid losing?
The unwillingness to lose sometimes has its downsides.
There was a limped pot here, Vousden put one blind in on the flop, Kulev quickly called to put the pot in against a check on the turn. And that bet unexpectedly decided the outcome of the hand – €urop€an didn’t bother to invent anything and simply folded the jack.
An interesting and ambitious check-raise of the flop from Vousden. And a successful one – Kulev gives up immediately.
3-max was generally, a cautious affair. These GTO players would rather check before the showdown. And even a preflop cooler knocked one of them down only on the second try:
Shortly before this hand, the Poker Pro had kings against Vousden, but things went slowly there: the players didn't go all-in right away, then looked at the flop with an ace, and Poker-Pro lost the minimum. Here, everything finally started spinning: 3-bet, all-in, call, a queen on the flop – and heads-up.
Let's also note that if €urop€an had misclicked and become the third player in this all-in, he would have certainly collected a full house.
The heads-up started with almost equal stacks – about 65bb each – and lasted almost half an hour. Vousden was doing much better, and with such a tailwind he was flawless. He even managed to wait for a big bluff!
Here Vousden raised preflop and made a continuation bet of half the pot on the flop, the turn was checked, everything is very standard, including the fact that the Finn was dealt a second pair on the river, literally forbidding him from making difficult decisions.
Poker Pro's chips gradually started to run out. He put his last 10 blinds all-in with 76s against A2o, suddenly doubled up, but only prolonged his torment for a few more minutes.
After this sad fold, Poker Pro is once again down to very few checkers. Having received a suited picture on the button, he goes all-in.
But the opponent calls with K6o and suddenly finds himself way ahead. The board is slammed , and the great and terrible Samuel Vousden melancholically wins his next tournament.
