Congratulations to Ronny Kaiser - EPT Tallinn Champion (€275,000)
Season 8 of the EPT has begun in spectacular style here in Tallinn. Although only 282 players entered, the field was jam-packed full of poker's European elite. The mix was no different at the beginning of play today as the final table had some of poker's most respected and feared names taking seats.
Ronny Kaiser is certainly in that category. The high-stakes PLO cash game specialist applied huge amounts of pressure from the off and it was hard to see another winner. Grzegorz Cichocki, to his credit, stuck with Kaiser all the way to heads-up but it was a different story from there on in. Including all the setting up, chips counts etc Kaiser dismantled and claimed his opponent's stack in less than an hour.
It was day of firsts for the countries represented in the top three. Kaiser was Switzerland's fist EPT champion, no one from Poland has finished in the top two before and the same can be be said for Estonians and top three finishes.
Here's how the top eight finished:
| Table | Seat | Name | Payout |
|---|---|---|---|
| Final Table | 1 | Ronny Kaiser | €275,000 |
| 2 | Grzegorz Cichocki | €180,000 | |
| 3 | Raigo Aasmaa | €110,000 | |
| 4 | Jani Sointula | €80,000 | |
| 5 | Stuart Fox | €55,000 | |
| 6 | Erlend Melsom | €45,000 | |
| 7 | Sami Kelopuro | €35,000 | |
| 8 | Arvi Vainionkulma | €25,000 |
Rick Dacey talked to our champion just before the trophy presentation and here's what he had to say:
"It's very nice to win. I've been the chip leader for three days but I've got deep before and always finished 20th. This time I thought, 'I should win this.' "
On having Cichocki on his left for the last two days:
"It was funny. We were next to each other for two days but the first big pot that we played was when were heads up. It wasn't deliberate, we just busted all the other guys. It wasn't a conscious decision to avoid him, I wasn't scared."
"I said that I'll be the first EPT winner from Switzerland. I'll be playing EPT Barcelona for sure." First double winner?
A hearty congratulations to Ronny Kaiser from everyone at PokerNews. He has the style of play of play that will make him a blogger's favourite for a long time to come.