WARSAW 09 SUMMARY

It was the last Unibet Open of 2009, straight from the heartland of Poland, the gorgeous sprawling city of Warsaw. For one of the 400-plus players, Christmas was about to be coming early as they could be taking home a six-figure sum in Euros. Despite clashing with EPT over in Prague, the tournament was a complete sellout as they vied to be the last Unibet Champion of the year.

It was not just a vast quantity of qualifiers hoping to quell this field though, Unibet Prague winner Fuat Can also made an appearance, as did former Irish Open and WSOP bracelet holder Marty Smyth, both successfully navigating their way into Day 2. Also making his way through to the second day was the Algarve winner Andre Dias, but all were way behind Frenchman Regis Burlot who comfortably sat on top of the field.

If anyone had thought that Burlot would relax and sit on his lead into day 2 then they were sorely mistaken as the Frenchman ripped the field early on nearly doubling his stack in the first few hours and getting over 400,000 as we were left with around 50 players left. To put it in perspective, the average stack would’ve been about 80,000 at this point! Another topsy-turvy statistic at this point also reared it’s head, as surveying the field it looked as though Marty Smyth stood head and shoulders above everyone else in terms of lifetime cashes with over $3.6 million in winnings. In fact, it was probable he had more in cashes than every other player left in the tournament put together!

Eventually the bubble burst, Dobromir Nikov, previously crippled in a race with Simon Johansson, was then eliminated by last year’s Warsaw champion, when the latter’s Q-Q hit a third queen for good measure against Nikov’s A-4.

But both Smyth and Johansson, as well as Dias and Fuat Can would all fail to reach the final table and had to make do with cash placements just on the cusp of greatness. The final looked as follows:

Viktoria Szilasi (Hungary) — 120,000
Tom Rademaker (Netherlands) — 749,000
Filipe Martins (Portugal) — 371,000
Regis Burlot (France) — 875,000
Joachim Buch (Norway) — 252,000
Jimmy Jonsson (Sweden) — 522,000
Wojcech Frankowski (Poland) — 256,000
Imre Leibold (Estonia) — 438,000
Francois Jardinet (Belgium) — 440,000

Viktoria Szilasi was unable to recover from her short stack and was eliminated first. The last hope for the hosts, Wojcech Frankowski was knocked out next, pushing 7-3 into Imre Leipold’s A-Q before Filipe Martins ran A-J blind on blind into the seemingly unstoppable Regis Burlot’s Kings. The Belgian Jardinet followed, he got short and pushed with J-T but couldn’t beat Tom Rademaker’s A-8, especially after an A-7-4-A-6 board.

After Leibold busted, we were left with Rademaker, Burlot, Jimmy Jonsson and Joachim Buch, all of whom held the chip lead at some point during the final table! Jonsson won a crucial flip with A-J against Rademaker’s 2-2, rivering the ace to regain the chip lead, then eliminated the Dutch player shortly afterwards with Q-2 against a short-stacked T-8 for Rademaker. The next hand and Jonsson knocked out Buch too, finding Queens against the Norwegian’s T-9. Suddenly Jonsson was heads-up with a 3:1 chip lead against Burlot.

The Frenchman though, would not back down and began to chip away at Jonsson, gradually pulling himself back into contention before almost bringing them even.

But in the final hand, the luck went Jonsson’s way, as the two got it all-in on a K-J-8 board, Burlot holding K-9 against Jonsson’s Q-T. The 9 on the turn gave the Swede the nut straight and he avoid the full house on the Queen river, ensuring the final Unibet Open champion of the year would be Swedish!

TOP WINNERS FROM
UNIBET OPEN WARSAW ‘09

1.			Jimmy Jonsson	€ 161,271
2.			Regis Burlot	104,352
3.			Joachim Buch	69,569
4.			Tom Rademaker	50,590
5.			Imre Leibold	39,522
6.			Francois Jardinet	26,885
7.			Filipe Martins	19,929
8.			Wojcech Frankowski	14,235
9.			Viktoria Szilasi	11,386