Byron Kaverman Wins EPT Malta €10,300 High Roller for €430,800!
Byron Kaverman took down the 2015 PokerStars.com EPT Season 12 Malta €10,300 High Roller inside The Casino at Portomaso on Saturday.
Kaverman, who also finished ninth in the €10,200 Single-Day High Roller and fifth in the €25,750 High Roller earlier in the festival, collected €430,800 and a shiny new PokerStars trophy after he defeated a field of 210 entries in this event.
The third and final day began just after noon local time on Saturday with 19 players remaining and Mukul Pahuja in the lead. The field was whittled down to 11 after just the first two levels, and it was Kaverman who was doing most of the heavy lifting. By that point, he built a chip lead of his own as the only player above 2 million in chips.
The final table was reached by the end of the next level, with Mikalai Vaskaboinikau cracking Dominik Nitsche's queens with the nut flush to send him home ninth.
Coming off his 2015 WSOP Europe Main Event win earlier this month, Kevin MacPhee was the next to go, running fives into Pahuja's tens and failing to improve. With that pot, Pahuja moved over 3 million in chips and took the lead back heading into seven-handed play.
Bryn Kenney's run ended in seventh when he ran the 
into Ihar Soika's 
and could not work his way out of the jam. Roberto Romanello then helped Pahuja increase his lead, shoving over his raise with the 
and losing a race when Pahuja called with the 
.
Vaskaboinikau went on a huge tear after that, getting it in with the 
versus Vladimir Dobrovolskiy's 
on an 
flop, then finding a queen on the end to double big. Vaskaboinikau sent Dobrovolskiy home fifth soon after, crawling out from under a dominated ace by flopping a pair after he called a Dobrovolskiy three-bet shove.
Four-handed, two players from the United States and two from Belarus remained.
Belarusian Soika busted first, flopping two pair, only to have Pahuja turn two bigger pair and call his river shove. The other Belarusian, Vaskaboinikau, got short, but managed to climb his way back in it before eventually shoving over a Pahuja raise with a dominated 
against Pahuja's 
to bow out third.
Pahuja took a healthy lead into the all-American heads-up match, but after about an hour and a half, Kaverman turned the tables on him, turning a straight, pushing the river, and getting called by Pahuja on cracked pocket aces.
It wasn't long after that Kaverman got Pahuja all in with a pair versus ace-high and held to capture EPT Malta High Roller glory.
The score comes during a career year for Kaverman, who previously banked just shy of $3 million in live tournament earnings for 2015. As for the victory, it's Kaverman's fourth win of the year and 10th six-figure score. The highlight of the Ohio native's 2015 was undoubtedly winning a World Series of Poker gold bracelet during the summer in Las Vegas when he took down the $10,000 Six-Handed No-Limit Hold'em Championship event for $657,351.