Lucas Blanco Oliver Wins the Inaugural Devilfish Cup
Spain’s Lucas Blanco Oliver is the winner of the inaugural £1 million guaranteed Devilfish Cup after he topped a star-studded field of 204 entrants to get his hands on £250,000, the winner’s trophy and a special edition guitar signed by co-founder of Queen, Brian May.
2016 Devilfish Cup Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lucas Blanco Oliver | £250,000 |
| 2 | Paul-Francois Tedeschi | £150,000 |
| 3 | Benjamin Heath | £105,000 |
| 4 | Simon Deadman | £80,000 |
| 5 | Peter Roche | £70,000 |
| 6 | Barny Boatman | £60,000 |
| 7 | John Cynn | £50,000 |
| 8 | Manig Loeser | £40,000 |
| 9 | Ian Simpson | £30,000 |
Some of the United Kingdom and Europe’s elite poker tournament players were among the 161 unique entries, who made 43 re-entries between them, in the £5,300 buy in tournament. Such luminaries as Louis Salter, Nick Hicks, Mike Sexton, Alex Goulder, Dara O’Kearney, Anton Wigg, Antoine Saout, Niall Farrell, Tony Dunst, Patrick Leonard, Michael Tureniec, Steve O’Dwyer and Jason Wheeler all fell before the money places.
Twenty places were paid and it was Wahid Patel who was the unfortunate bubble boy, falling in 21st place, meaning those remaining 20 players with chips in front of them had locked up at least £9,700 for their efforts.
Richard Kellet was the first player to bust inside the money places and he was joined on the sidelines via the cashier’s desk, by Simon Higgins, Waheed Ashraf, Steven Warburton, former tennis ace Boris Becker and Sam Trickett, the latter falling in 11th place for £20,000.
The nine-handed final table took eight-and-a-half hours from start to finish, with Ian Simpson running jacks into a pair of kings to be the first casualty of the finale.
Germany’s Manig Loeser was the next to bust, followed by John Cynn, Barny Boatman, Peter Roche and Simon Deadman.
Benjamin Heath was eliminated in third place, his jack-ten no match for Blanco Oliver’s back kings, which meant Blanco Oliver and France’s Paul-Francois Tedeschi locked horns heads up for the title.
After more than an hour of one-on-one action, Tedeschi committed the last of his chips with A♣2♥ and Blanco Oliver had an easy call with A♦K♣. A final board reading 3♠7♠9♦Q♦10♥ sent Tedeschi home in second place, leaving Blaco Oliver to scoop a quarter of a million pounds.
You can watch the entire final table on YouTube below:
