Nikolaus Teichert (c) Eddie Malluk/WSOP
In the biggest draw yet of this year’s WSOP – 1,736 players – so big, in fact, that the heads up play had to be scheduled for Day 4; Nikolaus Teicherts needed a little help from the deck on the last hand to come through. He came from behind on the dominated ace to catch a three-outer two pair and clinch the victory, adding a substantial $730,736 to his already sizeable live cashes of $211K and his first WSOP bracelet to go with it.
Final table was set half way through Day 3 and featured several notables among the following (with the three Nicks an early indication of who the winner may be):
Sebastian Comel 2,190,000
Vincent Maglio 2,135,000
Nikolaus Teichert 1,555,000
Sergey Lebedev 1,480,000
Josh Arieh 1,195,000
Nicolaus Faure 1,095,000
Dan Owen 1,000,000
Nicolas Levi 735,000
Kirill Rabtsov 645,000
The first three eliminations (Nicolas Levi, $53,593, Sebastian Comel, $69,627, and Nicolaus Faure, $91,586) did not materialize until hand #58, but the play picked up pace from that moment on.
Kirill Rabtsov four-bet all in into a multi-player pot holding A
Q and ended up facing one caller: Sergey Lebedev with 1010
. The pocket pair held and Rabtsov was our sixth place finisher for the first 6-digit payout of the day, $122,036.
Arieh was eliminated next running into Maglio’s Broadway on a high pair when he pushed all in, collecting $164,768 for his fifth place showing.
Lebedev moved all in from small blind at blind level 31: 50,000 – 100,000, 10,000 ante, holding K3 and sitting on 2,350,000 in chips. Maglio called from big blind on A4
and sent Lebedev home in fourth, $225,392, when the board ran out 4
669J.
One more elimination was needed before two players could decide the champion, and it was Dan Owen, who four-bet all in on KJ to Teichert, who snapped the other with A5. It was a long way back for Owen when an ace fell on the A78 flop and, not hitting runner runner, Dan Owen had to depart in third place for $312,516.
Teichert and Maglio started the heads-up about evenly stacked and played 25 hands at the end of day three, which did not decide a winner. Returning on the following day, it took them only nine hands to figure out who will have all the chips. Both holding a suited ace on hand #150, A2 for Teichert and the better A10 for Maglio, they, not surprisingly, ended up all in preflop and saw the flop come KA3. Teichert needed serious help from the dealer when the turn came 9 to even split the pot, but got one better when 2 fell on the river for all the marbles.
Vincent Maglio finished second and won a dream-like $452,008 for his fabulous run to the runner-up. Nikolaus Teichert, however, got the glory of the WSOP bracelet winner and the first prize, a whopping $730,756.