EPT Warsaw: Barbosa Wins

Published on 20 Nov 08 15:15 by Drakhor

Nico 'behlinho' Behling would have almost taken the fourth EPT title back to Germany, if it hadn't been for the Portuguese João Barbosa who got the win and €367,140 after a lengthy heads-up.

It took almost four hours before the decision fell in the finale of the last two. Behling started into the heads-up with about 800,000 in chips, while Barbosa held 1.3 million. With blinds of 10,000/20,000, it was not really a surprise that it took so long with both players being so deep.

Heads-up between Behling and Barbosa

However, the first key hand immediately went to Barbosa. On the flop of , Behling re-raised a flop bet by the Portuguese, who instantly pushed all-in, though. Behling made an instant fold, and remained with barely 500,000 chips. From then on, it was a real roller coaster ride for the German. Back to over 800,000, then down again to 500,000, and once more back up to 800,000 were only a few stops during his wild ride.

At one point, Behling would have almost gotten the chip lead when he moved in with A-J against Barbosa's A-9, and thus clearly dominated the Portuguese. However, the board was not in his favour. It came with , so that the pot was split. The chip lead slipped out of the German's grasp, and instead the Portuguese sealed the deal.

After a bet by Behling to 60,000, Barbosa re-raised to 200,000. This time, however, Behling did not fold, and pushed all of his chips across the line for another 500,000. Barbosa called, showed and was thus almost a 60% favourite against Behling's . The flop of gave Nico a seven, but also an ace for Barbosa, so that the German was down to barely 20%. Only another seven, a jack or running spades could have helped him now, but two sixes on turn and river didn't change anything, and Behling finished as the runner-up.

For the 26-year old Barbosa, who celebrated his birthday yesterday, it was probably one of the best presents of all time.

Minieri once again third

The Italian Dario Minieri also has to wait a bit longer for his first title. Already for the third time, he finished third in an EPT event. In 2007 in San Remo, and in 2006 in Baden, he was only two places away from the title.

Next stop: EPT Prague

In about 20 days, the Tour makes a stop in Prague. Last year, the "Golden City" saw Frenchman Arnaud Matter win the event, taking a prize money of €708,400 back to Paris.

EPT Warschau 2008 Final Table Results
Rank	Name	Country	Prize money
1	João Barbosa	Portugal	€367,140
2	Nico Behling	Germany	€205,270
3	Dario Minieri	Italy	€123,162
4	Atanas Gueorguiev	Bulgaria	€87,973
5	Arnaud Mattern	France	€72,724
6	Sergey Shcherbatskiy	Russia	€57,476
7	Andrea Benelli	Italy	€45,745
8	Ludovic Lacay	France	€32,843
9	Michael Muheim	Switzerland	€21,114

Origin of photo material: EPT