Ka Kwan Lau Wins €10,000 EPT High Roller Trophy (€910,400)
It was a long final day and night for the last players of the €10,000 EPT High Roller at the 2023 PokerStars European Poker Tour (EPT) at Casino Barcelona. But around 2 a.m., the tournament came to an end. And it was Ka Kwan Lau who was the most endurant and patient player of them all as he was the one who raised the trophy and won the first-place prize of €910,400.
Chip leader all along the final table, he managed to eliminate the last six players. So with almost all the chips, he dominated his opponent in a short heads-up battle and beat a total field of 475 entrants.
Vladas Tamasauskas completed the podium, ahead of two French players, Eric Sfez who finished fourth and Alexandre Reard in sixth, with Maher Nouira taking fifth place between the two players.
€10,000 EPT High Roller Final Table Results
| Rank | Player | Country | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ka Kwan Lau | Hong Kong | €910,400 |
| 2 | NC | France | €568,750 |
| 3 | Vladas Tamasauskas | Lithuania | €406,250 |
| 4 | Eric Sfez | France | €312,550 |
| 5 | Maher Nouira | Tunisia | €240,400 |
| 6 | Alexandre Reard | France | €184,950 |
| 7 | Aleksandr Shevliakov | Russia | €142,300 |
| 8 | Toby Joyce | Ireland | €109,450 |
| 9 | Francesco Pilato | Italy | €85,250 |
"It was insanely long"
"This last day was insanely long," Lau said a few minutes after he won. "We returned with 40 players left on Day 3, which is a lot. So we knew it would be long if we were on the final table. But I didn’t expect it to be that long."
After 13 hours from the first hand dealt to the final one and a final table that lasted more than five hours, he managed to win the tournament.
But even though he was proud of this title, Lau stayed humble: "I know it would be hard to reach the first place, as No-Limit Hold’em is not my main game. So I was not very confident when I played. But from the start of Day 1, everything was going very well. I had good situations, and I ran very well during the whole tournament."
To illustrate this good run, he took as an example one of the last hands when he hit two pairs with fours and treys to eliminate Sfez.
This first-place finish closed a very good festival for Lau, as he finished 31st in the €5,300 EPT Main Event for €36,100. Eliminated on Day 5, he was one of the chip leaders on Day 3. "But on Day 4, I played one hand badly. Then I ran with ace-king into aces, and I lost two flips. So this win compensates for the disappointment of the Main Event."
Day 3 Action
Forty players out of 475 entrants successfully qualified for Day 3 of the €10,300 EPT High Roller with only one goal: take the first-place prize of €910,400. But this dream quickly didn’t come true for Song Xue, Edilson Marques, or PokerStars ambassador Rafael Moraes, who were the first players eliminated of the day.
After Lau showed a crazy bluff with seven-four in a four-bet pot, the second level was a nightmare for the three Romanian players remaining because all of them were eliminated during that period. Adrian Chiforescu and Adrian Cretu went to the cashier almost at the same time. And they were followed by Razvan Belea, who couldn't win his last flip to take another prestigious EPT tournament this year, after he won EPT Paris in February.
The two other EPT champions in the field didn't go much further, as Patrik Antonius ran into a set to finish 28th (€25,550), and Dominik Panka (23rd, €33,800) was eliminated shortly after the three tables redraw.
Next ones on the elimination list, Andras Nemeth, Hwany Lee, and Francisco Benitez were, of course, disappointed, but maybe not as much as Patrick Bruel. The French singer saw his tens getting cracked on the turn by trip nines for Aleksandr Shevliakov. Steaming, Bruel walked away in 19th position for €38,900.
Pakinai Lisawad was the last player eliminated before the redraw on two tables. Then, two more levels were needed to reach the final table bubble shortly before the dinner break. On the way, Ren Lin (16th, €44,750), Thomas Groven (15th, €51,450), Vlad Darie (14th, €51,450), Huang Wei (13th, €59,200), Igor Yaroshevskyy (12th, €59,200), and Vinicius Pinheiro (11th, €71,050) were left on the side of the road.
Back in a new room, the ten last players needed to kick one of them out to reach the final table. And it was one of the shortest stacks, Nicholas Palma, who didn’t make it, losing a flip to finish 10th for €71,050.
Then… not much, or almost nothing as more than two hours were needed to see the first elimination of the final table. Short stack for a long moment, Francesco Pilato’s tournament finally ended in 9th place (€85,250). Minutes later, Toby Joyce was out of the tournament too (8th, €109,450).
After that, there was a bit more of action, but only double-ups until the levels were shortened to 45 minutes. But that is after another break that things started to change, with Reard (6th, €184,950) being eliminated by Lau after he lost a big pot against Eric Sfez a few minutes before.
Moments later, Maher Nouira left the table too (5th, €240,400), even if he doubled up in the previous hands.
After Nouira's elimination, (NC) doubled through Vladas Tamasauskas. So the situation was one chipleader, Lau, and three even stacks behind. Tamasauskas dropped in the last place after NC doubled up again. But he managed to find a seat on the podium as Sfez's nines were cracked by Lau's double pair with treys and fours.
Lau then quickly took Tamasauskas' last two blinds (3rd, €406,250) to face NC in heads up. But the gap between the two stacks was too big, with Lau having five times more chips than his opponent. So after the first all-in and call situation, Lau won the €10,000 EPT High Roller.
