Martin Finger Wins EPT Prague Title

Martin Finger began the final table with the chip lead and carried it through to victory at the European Poker Tour Prague to take home the final EPT title of 2011. Finger took home €720,000 for his win.

Finger reached the final eight with only one close competitor, Nicolas Levi. The two leaders held about half the chips and play, and it seemed likely that one or both would likely reach heads-up play. However, Levi took a big hit when his two pair ran into the top set of David Boyaciyan. While Levi remained tough and fought valiantly, he would ultimately go out in third place.

That left Finger with about a 5-2 chip lead over Boyaciyan as heads-up play began. However, Boyaciyan wouldn’t go quietly, battling for three hours in an attempt to gain control of the match. But although Boyaciyan came close several times, he could never snag the chip lead away from Finger.

Finally, all of the money went into the middle in a coin flip situation, as Finger held AK against Boyaciyan’s pocket tens. The flop removed most of the drama from the hand, coming K-K-6 and giving Finger trip kings. No ten came on either the turn or the river, ending the tournament.

For his second place finish, Boyaciyan received €535,000.

This tournament will be a great boon to Finger, who has had only limited success in live tournament play up to this point. Over the last year, the German had cashed four times in EPT events – all with buy-ins of €1,000 or £1,000 – for a total of just over $76,000. This is his first major live tournament victory.

The final table results were as follows:

1^st Martin Finger €720,000
2^nd David Boyaciyan €535,000
3^rd Nicolas Levi €270,000
4^th Guillem Usero €205,000
5^th Denys Drobyna €160,000
6^th Ari Engel €125,000
7^th Andreas Wiese €90,000
8^th Mads Wissing €66,700