Tamir Segal Wins the 2018 World Series of Poker Europe COLOSSUS for €203,820
After less than four hours of play, the first gold bracelet of the 2018 World Series of Poker Europe has been awarded to Tamir Segal from Israel! Segal beat 2,991 other hopefuls on the road to the first-place prize of €203,820 for winning Event #1: €550 COLOSSUS No-Limit Hold’em.
The guaranteed prize pool for the tournament was set at €1,000,000 but was surpassed during the penultimate flight and exceeded the expectations by achieving a prize pool of €1,435,412 in the end. More than half of the entries were collecting over the last two flights here at the King’s Casino in rustic Rozvadoz, Czech Republic.
This is the biggest cash ever for Segal and he was very happy to be able to take this back to the bank after defeating Wojciech Wyrebski heads-up. The second-place prize of €125,966 is also the biggest ever for the Polish player and he will also have been very satisfied with his deep run today.
After eight starting flights and a hectic paced Day 2, ten players made it through to the unofficial final table. Hannes Neurauter, Krasimir Yankov, and Bjorn Bouwmans were the most notable players on the feature table.
Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Country | Prize (in EUR) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tamir Segal | Israel | 203,820? |
| 2 | Wojciech Wyrebski | Poland | 125,966 |
| 3 | Aksel Ayguen | Belgium | 92,385? |
| 4 | Dariusz Glinski | Poland | 68,331? |
| 5 | Hannes Neurauter | Germany | 51,854 |
| 6 | Francesco Delfoco | Italy | 38,349? |
| 7 | Flavio Decataldo | Italy | 29,104 |
| 8 | Krasimir Yankov | Bulgaria | 22,281? |
| 9 | Bjorn Bouwmans | Netherlands | 17,209 |
| 10 | Nelio Gatta | Italy | 13,410? |
Action of the Final Day
The final day of the COLOSSUS started just after 3 PM local time on the TV table which would be live streamed with a 30-minute delay. Hole cards wouldn’t be shown until the final eight players had been reached. A mere twenty minutes into the day, Aksel Ayguen found a double-up through Dariusz Glinski when he shoved with pocket eights and was called by Glinksi with pocket aces. Ayguen rivered a straight to stay alive. Another fifteen minutes later, the official final table was reached when Nelio Gatta shoved his last 12 big blinds into the pocket fives of Segal and didn’t get enough help of the board.
Flavio Decataldo was the next to double his short stack up with ace-king against Yankov’s queen-ten just before the first official break of the day. Shortly after the restart of the tournament, which might have been the key hand of the tournament, Bouwmans had raised with ace-king and Segal shoved on him with ace-queen. Bouwmans tanked and then called to see the queen come on the turn to eliminate him in 9th place. The Dutchman finished in 24th place last year so has improved on that result but was pretty disappointed to not have come even farther this time.
With the hole cards now being streamed too, the momentum seemed to turn too. Wojciech Wyrebski doubled through Neurauter with pocket aces against queens. Yankov was yanked away from the tournament when he ran his ace-jack into the ace-king of Wyrebski. Yankov ran deep earlier this year during the summer when he finished in 64th place in the Main Event on Day 6.
Then it was Flavio Decataldo’s turn to double up when his ace-king held against the ace-jack of Glinski. Glinski himself then quadrupled up to just over seven big blinds with king-queen. But then the run of Decataldo was really over, his pocket kings couldn’t crack the pocket aces of Segal. The Italian kilt-wearing Francesco Delfoco had just over a big blind when he called Segal’s raise from the button. His ace-ten couldn’t beat the deuces of Segal who even flopped a set to eliminate Delfoco in 6th place for €38,349.
A double up for Glinski and one for Ayguen later, Neurauter’s shove with queen-five suited was called by Segal and Ayguen. The flop came seven-deuce-ten for Ayguen to shove too. Segal folded and Neurauter was behind against the pocket nines. Neurauter turned a flush draw but got no further help. He picked up €50,971 plus €883 he won in one of the starting days of the tournament. Five minutes later, The day 1A chip leader, Glinksi, was gone when his ace-deuce were beaten by the ace-eight of Ayguen.
Ayguen was slowly losing chips to Segal when the final blow came when he ran his pocket jacks into the king-seven of Segal himself. Segal rivered the straight to eliminate Ayguen in third place to go heads up against the Day 2 chip leader, Wyrebski. The chips when back and forth for about twenty minutes before Wyrebski raised with ace-queen and Segal shoved on him with king-ten. Wyrebski called but busted when the king came on the turn for Segal and Segal even improved to two pair on the river to win the tournament.
Right now, Event #2: €1,650 No-Limit Hold'em 6-Handed Deepstack and Event #3: €550 Pot-Limit Omaha 8-Handed are ongoing with live updates coming in from the PokerNews live reporting team, so make sure to follow all the action in those events too!