Igor Kurganov was crowned as the winner of the 2017 PokerStars Championship Barcelona €50,000 Super High Roller. This is the 12th trophy of the player, who also took home a monetary prize estimated to €1,078,106 after he agreed on a deal with his last standing opponent Bartlomiej Machon.
Kurganov, who is a member of PokerStars Team Pro, has won his 12th tournament title so far. The title is also the first one he has won in Europe.
The PokerStars Championship Barcelona started on August 15th at Casino Barcelona. Its €50,000 Super High Roller Event gathered a player field of 86 entries, with only 11 of them being granted with a monetary prize. The players accounted for a prize pool estimated to €4,129,290.
At the beginning of the Super High Roller final day, it was Koray Aldemir who held the chip lead, while Igor Kurganov was second, with 4,170,000 in chips. Before winning his 12th title last night, Kurganov had total live earnings of $14,089,225, with his best live cash estimated to $1,559,373.
Undoubtedly, the other member of PokerStars Team Pro – Daniel Negreanu – was one of the main favourites for winning the title. Negreanu is the all-time money leader in poker, considering the fact that he has generated winnings of over $34 million in his career so far. In addition, he has five WSOP bracelets, is a two-time bearer of the WSOP Player of the Year title, as well as to two WPT titles. Negreanu, however, does not own a PokerStars cup, which was considered as one of his main drivers for winning the title.
Unfortunately for Negreanu, he was the first player to get eliminated from the final table, with his PokerStars Team Pro team-mate Igor Kurganov doing the job. Soon enough, Kurganov was again the one who made Stanley Choi leave, and only minutes later Bryn Kenney was eliminated by Christopher Kruk.
With the number of players getting smaller, the tension around the final table was increasing. Koray Aldemir, who started Day 3 as a chip leader, lost his chips to Kurganov. At the time when Kurganov and Bartlomiej Machon were the only two players standing around the final table, a two-way deal was made. The players agreed for the payouts to be restructured, with the difference between the first and the second place being divided in half and adding it to the second place. The players also agreed the other half to be divided according to chip counts.
After the deal was done, it did not take Kurganov long to emerge victorious from the 2017 PokerStars Championship Barcelona €50,000 Super High Roller, leaving Machon on the second position.
With Igor Kurganov on the first position of the ranking with a prize of €1,078,106, Bartlomiej Machon remained on the runner-up position. He was granted with a guaranteed prize pool cash portion estimated to €864,694. The third position in the ranking was occupied by Koray Aldemir, who got a consolation prize of €528,500.
The German poker player Dietrich Fast finished on the fourth place, scooping a monetary prize estimated to €406,790, while Ivan Luca remained fifth. The Canadian player Christopher Kruk ranked sixth, followed by Bryn Kenney from the US. The eighth and ninth positions of the ranking was occupied by Stanley Choi and Daniel Negreanu, respectively.
- Author
Harry Evans
