In 2022, the World Series of Poker Europe (WSOPE) was bigger than ever before. A schedule of 15 events packed poker players’ Autumn schedules as 15 different winners entered poker history. The fields were larger than they had previously been, as poker proved that the live boom wasn’t simply a kneejerk reaction to the world recovering from a pandemic but a sign of things to come. As the WSOP Main Event attendance was almost broken in Las Vegas, Europe showed where the game was headed, with a new record number of players taking on the big one.
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Savevski Scores More Gold
The opening event of the 2022 WSOPE series was the €350 Opener, which saw a mammoth field of 1,399 entries and 1,055 re-entries produce a prize pool of €734,359. That meant a top prize of €95,670 plus a €10,350 seat in the WSOP Main Event. After a thrilling final table featuring three German players in the top five, an all-Italian showdown saw Fabio Peluso outlast his compatriot Carlo Savinelli for the bracelet.
The second event was the Pot Limit Omaha 8-Max, which cost €550 to play. With a great showing of 566 players, German professional Helmut Phung beat Norwegian Martin Almaas heads-up to claim the €55,132 top prize. Both of the opening two events outperformed expectations, exceeding their guarantees by more than 30% in each case.
The third event of the series was just as well attended, with the one million Euro guaranteed, €1,350 buy-in Mini Main Event seeing 1,431 entries to create a prize pool of over €1.6 million. A total of 215 players made the money, including stars such as Simone Andrian (152nd), Allen ‘Chainsaw’ Kessler (146th), Shaun Deeb (99th) and Victoria Livschitz (82nd). At the final table, three German players made the top six, but it was the North Macedonian Ilija Savevski who was king, claiming a massive €255,669, which included a seat to the WSOP Europe Main Event.
Achieving the Ultimate Goal
Event #4 saw players compete in the €2,000 PLO bracelet event, and after 221 entries created a prize pool of €388,407, Hong Kong player Yan Tsang won the gold bracelet, his third, for €95,461. Less than 6 hours after Tsang’s triumph, another battle had begun in the €550-entry Colossus event. Out of nearly 3,000 entries, Slovakian player Luboš Láska took home the top prize of €180,918.
In the €5,000-entry PLO Event #6, Ukrainian Roman Verenko claimed bragging rights, with his victory over Swedish player Omar Eljach heads-up for €247,288. Eljach was disappointed to depart with €152,827 but maintained his efforts as the series continued. Having outlasted players such as Roland Israelishvili (8th for €23,042), Shaun Deeb (10th for €15,437) and Jan-Peter Jachtmann (15th for €11,744), Eljach fell at the final hurdle, but Verenko’s win would not ruin the Swede’s series.
In the next event, 413 players battled to win the No Limit Hold’em 6-Max event, with soccer star Max Kruse claiming his first-ever WSOP bracelet. The German, who played for clubs such as Wolfsburg, Fenerbahce, and Werder Bremen, as well as appearing 14 times as a full German international, scoring four goals, transitioned into poker at the end of his career in sports. Claiming gold was no easy feat, as Kruse had to outlast Nacho Barbero (6th for €20,236) and Farid Jattin (3rd for €63,874) along the way.
Kruse Hits the Back of the Net
The big winners didn’t stop with Max Kruse. In the next event, Malaysian businessman and Triton Poker legend Paul Phua won his first and only WSOP bracelet to date with a brilliant victory in the €25,000-entry Platinum High Roller event. Some of the toughest poker players in the world assembled, with Phua getting the better of the South Korean Gab Yong Kim to claim the €482,433 top prize.
With 67 entries, there were deep runs for Shaun Deeb (3rd for €298,163), Daniel Negreanu (4th for €146,370), and British player Ben Heath (6th for €82,104), whose sole bracelet to date remains the $50,000 High Roller he won in 2019 at the 50th annual WSOP for $1.48 million.
Bracelet wins for Emil Bise, Thomer Pidun, Yair van Ruiten, Karim Maekelberg and Andriy Lyubovetskiy followed before Orpen Kisacikoglu claimed victory in the €50,000 Diamond High Roller as he cut through the field for a top score of €748,106 for his first and only WSOP bracelet to date.
Kisacikoglu beat the talented British player Sam Grafton heads-up. The long-time online player known as ‘Sam Squid’, Grafton has never won a bracelet but did come close, winning €462,363 as runner-up and finishing ahead of Shaun Deeb (3rd place for €313,919), Nick Petrangelo (4th for €220,045) and Timothy Adams (5th for €159,413).
With the completion of the Diamond High Roller, it was time for the Main Event, and just like in previous years, the attendance record was broken again. 763 entries far exceeded the €5,000,000 guarantee, and the prize pool was stretched to over €7.24 million. However, only one player would win the top prize of €1.38 million.
Boatman Gets Close Again
With 115 players reaching the money places, positive results were achieved for many stars of the felt, such as Roland Israelishvili (110th for €16,250), Greek former champion Alexandros Kolonias (97th for €18,069), Orpen Kisacikoglu (75th for €20,650), and Jack Sinclair (64th for €21,973).
Others got even closer to glory, with Nacho Barbero (46th for €29,562), Boris Kolev (26th for €39,368), Gab Yong Kim (11th for €85,461), and Timothy Adams (9th for €107,024) all going close to the final table. When that began, Omar Eljach was in the chip lead, and that lead only grew before Alexandre Reard left in eighth for €138,702, running pocket queens into the pocket aces of Lithuanian Vladas Tamasauskas.
The British poker hero Barny Boatman was the next to leave, cashing for €180,867 in seventh place. All-in with pocket aces, he was way ahead of Shaun Deeb pre-flop but the American made two pair to take out the unfortunate English poker legend just shy of the top six. Austrian Armin Rezaei was the next to leave in fifth place for €239,466, before Romanian Paul-Adrian Covaciu won €321,838 and Tamasauskas crashed out in fourth place for €438,978.
Deeb Denied as Super Swede Grabs Gold
Three-handed play saw Shaun Deeb fall short, and he fell to the man with all the momentum, Omar Eljach. The Swede was the man to stop in heads-up play, and the French professional Jonathan Pastore managed to do just that in the early exchanges of the final duel.
All that hard work was for nothing after Pastore triple-barrel bluffed away the lead, and when the Frenchman four-bet shoved with ace-eight, Eljach had a simple call with pocket queens. An eight came, but that was where the help ended for Pastore as he finished as runner-up for €852,949, while Eljach claimed the €1,380,129 top prize and priceless WSOPE Main Event bracelet.
“There are so many emotions – I feel relief, I feel incredible joy,” said Eljach in the aftermath. “It’s an amazing feeling. In my early twenties, I began to give it a shot and play low-stakes cash at the casinos in Stockholm. I’ve just been grinding away step-by-step, playing bigger and bigger, and now we’re here.”
The pinnacle of Eljach’s career, his WSOPE Main Event win, was, in the champion’s own words, ‘such a draining battle.’
“I want to have a short vacation and celebrate, but I don’t know where yet!” he said. “It will be nice to see something else after being here for a couple of weeks.”
While Eljach might have had enough of Rozvadov after his colossal achievement, he would return in 2023 as the reigning WSOPE Main Event champion. Once again, the Swedish player would make the money… but he would not be the winner.
| Player | Country | Prize | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | Omar Eljach | Sweden | €1,380,128 |
| 2nd | Jonathan Pastore | France | €852,949 |
| 3rd | Shaun Deeb | United States | €607,531 |
| 4th | Vladas Tamasauskas | Lithuania | €438,978 |
| 5th | Paul Adrian Covaciu | Romania | €321,838 |
| 6th | Armin Rezaei | Austria | €239,466 |
| 7th | Barny Boatman | United Kingdom | €180,867 |
| 8th | Alexandre Reard | France | €138,702 |
| 9th | Timothy Adams | Canada | €108,024 |
2021 WSOP Europe 2023 WSOP Europe
About the Author: Paul Seaton has written about poker for over 10 years, interviewing some of the best players ever to play the game such as Daniel Negreanu, Johnny Chan and Phil Hellmuth. Over the years, Paul has reported live from tournaments such as the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas and the European Poker Tour. He has also written for other poker brands where he was Head of Media, as well as BLUFF magazine, where he was Editor.