Chris Moorman Second at UKIPT; Cantu Beats Aguiar

Moorman Gets Second at UKIPT

Chris Moorman narrowly missed out on his second live tournament title yesterday after losing out to Germany’s Wojtek Barzantny in the finale of UKIPT’s Online Championship.

Having started out online, the unique event switched to a live final when play reached eight-handed. Having had a few weeks to plan their strategy, the remaining players reconvened inside Bristol’s Gala casino yesterday to compete for the £77,126 first place prize.

Starting the final third in chips it looked as though Chris would be pushing hard for the title from the start, but after losing a race with pocket nines his chances of success looked slim. With less than ten big blinds left he assumed the guise of short stack ninja and began slicing his way through the field.

After rebuilding his stack, and watching fellow Brits Dan Smyth and Ben Jenkins hit the rail, Chris found himself heads-up against Barzantny. With over 80 big blinds each and neither wanting to give an inch, the match went on for hours before Barzantny finally made a breakthrough.

After snatching the chip lead he finally captured the biggest win of his career when his [Qh] [Jd] connected with the board to better Chris’s [Ac] [3h]. With that, Barzantny scooped the biggest win of his career as well as the scalp of one of the game’s best tournament players.

1. Wojtek Barzantny – £77,126.03

2. Chris Moorman – £55,471.50

3. Rafael Porzecanski – £41,090.00

4. David Lenz – £30,817.50

5. Joep van den Bijgaart – £20,545

6. Dan Smyth – £14,381.50

7. Ben Jenkins – £9,245.25

8. Sregey Sergeevich Prostakov – £6,163.50

Cantu and Aguiar’s Grudge Match

Earlier today we brought you a preview of Jonathan Aguiar and Brandon Cantu’s heads-up grudge match. Since then pair have been pushing chips back-and-forth and after multiple hours of play it was Cantu who finally won the match.

While the $130,000 prize was certainly something each player wanted to win, it was pride that was the main thing fuelling the match. Indeed, after a disagreement during their WSOPE €10,000 Mixed Match first and second place finishes, the pair decided to settle their difference on the felt.

However, after the final hand was complete, Cantu didn’t seem interested in replying to Aguiar’s tweet:

“Busto 55 vs. 66, I guess now it’s settled?”

While Cantu can now claim a token victory over Aguiar, the American can still sleep easy knowing the his WSOPE bracelet not only put him in the history books but earned him enough GPI ranking points to push him into 270^th place on the GPI Top 300.

Stars Turn Out For MCOP Main

The Master Classics of Poker’s main event kicked off yesterday and after a total of 212 players anted-up the €5,000 + €250 buy-in, just 128 players remained standing at the end of the day. With a prizepool of over €1 million, the eventual winner will walk away with €286,200 on Sunday.

A host of European talent was on display during the early levels of Day 1, including Dominik Nitsche, Joe Ebanks, Lex Veldhuis, Ana Marquez and Ilan Boujenah.

However, at the close of play it was Johan Roosen who topped with the chip counts with 145,725 chips, just ahead of skilled Swede Michael Tureniec who has 135,500.

Today will see the field whittled down even further, before tomorrow’s penultimate day of play.