At 11 a.m. local time the Grand Ballroom of the luxurious JW Marriott Bucharest Grand Hotel will be filled with poker players who all aspire to become the latest Unibet Open Main Event champion in the 10-year anniversary edition of the popular tournament series. The event comes with a price tag of €1,100 and will be played as freezeout with two starting days and a guaranteed prize pool of €500,000.
The Unibet Open are heading to Bucharest for the second time after 2016 and the defending champion of the event is Traian Bostan, who defeated a record-breaking 603-entry strong field for a payday of €100,000. Since then, the tour has seen a new record in the European Open Special Edition as part of the Wynn Poker Classic in Las Vegas, and American poker pro Joe Serock came out on top of a field of 673 entries to claim the trophy and first-place payout of $113,059. Other Unibet Open champions in 2017 include Gerret Van Lancker (Unibet Open London) and Kaarel Lepik (Unibet Open Copenhagen).
Day 1a of the €1,100 Main Event will feature a total of 11 levels of 60 minutes each with a break every two levels and a starting stack of 30,000, the registration remains open until the end of level seven and action concludes at approximately midnight local time. The PokerNews live reporting team will be right there to provide all the action from the floor until a champion is crowned.
As of 1 p.m. local time, Day 2 of the €2,200 High Roller will also recommence with 60 players out of 88 entries remaining. Japan’s Katsuhiro Muto leads the survivors and other notables in contention include Mihai Manole, Vlad Darie, Dan Chisu, two-time Unibet Open champions Dan Murariu and Mateusz Moolhuizen as well as the Unibet ambassadors Dara O’Kearney and Espen Uhlen Jorstad among others.
Unibet Open Main Events at a Glance
| Year | Event | Buy-In | Entries | Prize Pool | Winner | Country | Prize | Prize in US$ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2007 | Warsaw | €1,650 | 120 | $176,244 | Stale Lokse | Norway | zł159,900 | $65,090 |
| 2008 | Madrid | €1,650 | 297 | €442,800 | Joao Barbosa | Portugal | €115,800 | $179,240 |
| Milan | €1,650 | 320 | Domenico Tinnirello | Italy | €121,000 | $173,953 | ||
| Warsaw | zł5,500 | 270 | $486,758 | Simon Johansson | Sweden | zł464,805 | $152,355 | |
| 2009 | Budapest | €1,650 | 360 | €539,550 | Alvaro Aspas | Spain | €135,000 | $170,104 |
| Algarve | €1,650 | 409 | €596,406 | Andre Dias | Portugal | €151,000 | $207,104 | |
| London | £2,750 | 266 | £665,000 | Thanh Doan | Finland | £187,000 | $305,326 | |
| Prague | €1,650 | 451 | €660,000 | Fuat Can | Sweden | €167,500 | $245,983 | |
| Warsaw | zł7,000 | 401 | zł2,566,400 | Jimmy Jonsson | Sweden | zł654,430 | $239,778 | |
| 2010 | Budapest | €1,650 | 460 | €690,009 | Anthon-Pieter Wink | Netherlands | €172,500 | $235,665 |
| Golden Sands | €1,650 | 394 | €591,001 | Dan Murariu | Romania | €150,705 | $184,182 | |
| Prague | €1,650 | 424 | €629,640 | Henri Ojala | Finland | €157,000 | $207,037 | |
| Valencia | €1,650 | 361 | €541,500 | Thomas Thang | Denmark | €138,080 | $191,626 | |
| London | £1,650 | 273 | £409,500 | Paul Valkenburg | Netherlands | £109,550 | $171,408 | |
| 2011 | Malta | €1,650 | 293 | €417,525 | Mateusz Moolhuizen | Netherlands | €117,000 | $163,075 |
| Barcelona | €1,650 | 387 | €551,500 | Rubén Sánchez Cebollada | Spain | €145,000 | $212,246 | |
| Dublin | €1,650 | 260 | €390,000 | Paul Vas Nunes | United Kingdom | €105,300 | $151,742 | |
| Riga | Ls1,650 | 308 | Ls307,238 | Peter Harkes | Netherlands | Ls62,829 | $119,878 | |
| 2012 | Prague | €1,650 | 254 | €377,190 | Filip Verboven | Belgium | €100,000 | $131,574 |
| Paris | €1,650 | 439 | €653,671 | Jaroslaw Barglik | Poland | €140,539 | $185,310 | |
| London | £1,320 | 315 | £378,000 | Pratik Ghatge | United Kingdom | £85,050 | $136,305 | |
| Saint Martin | €1,650 | 238 | €346,290 | Dan Murariu | Romania | €110,000 | $142,590 | |
| 2013 | Copenhagen | €1,650 | 336 | Dkr3,604,608 | Kassem Yassine | Sweden | €107,367 | $126,744 |
| Tróia | €1,650 | 242 | €362,995 | Dmitry Varlamov | Russia | €80,187 | $104,811 | |
| Cannes | €1,650 | 313 | €450,750 | Quentin Lecomte | France | €100,000 | $132,918 | |
| Riga | Ls2,271 | 208 | Ls218,400 | Rens Feenstra | Netherlands | Ls52,800 | $101,652 | |
| 2014 | Copenhagen | DKr8,250 | 406 | Dkr2,923,299 | Frederik Jensen | Denmark | DKr625,000 | $116,168 |
| Tallinn | €1,100 | 262 | €248,900 | Mauri Dorbek | Estonia | €55,500 | $75,574 | |
| Cannes | €1,100 | 457 | €438,720 | Daniel Smith | United Kingdom | €88,000 | $114,059 | |
| London | £1,100 | 399 | £319,200 | Iaron Lightbourne | United Kingdom | £70,000 | $110,163 | |
| 2015 | Copenhagen | DKr8,250 | 404 | €389,948 | Theis Vad Hennebjerre | Denmark | DKr620,000 | $94,288 |
| Glasgow | £880 | 221 | £176,800 | Daniel Chutrov | Bulgaria | £43,000 | $66,030 | |
| Cannes | €1,100 | 411 | €394,560 | Julien Sitbon | France | €80,000 | $90,194 | |
| Antwerp | €1,100 | 321 | €321,000 | Mateusz Moolhuizen | Netherlands | €71,000 | $75,487 | |
| 2016 | London | £825 | 418 | £313,500 | Dave Shallow | United Kingdom | £62,000 | $86,747 |
| Malta | €1,100 | 292 | €292,000 | Martin Soukup | Czech Republic | €65,000 | $72,461 | |
| Copenhagen | DKr8,100 | 376 | €363,602 | Joni Liimatta | Finland | DKr525,000 | $79,571 | |
| Bucharest | €1,100 | 603 | €584,910 | Traian Bostan | Romania | €100,000 | $106,273 | |
| 2017 | London | £990 | 419 | £377,100 | Gerret Van Lancker | Belgium | £71,950 | $89,722 |
| Copenhagen | DKr8,250 | 404 | Dkr2,908,800 | Kaarel Lepik | Estonia | Dkr562,300 | $84,527 | |
| Las Vegas | $1,100 | 673 | $665,866 | Joe Serock | United States | $113,059 | $113,059 |
