No deal was made, so both players sat down to play for the win of the tournament.
They just played a few hands before Sebastian Ionita opened to 500,000 on the button. Ionut Voinea three-bet to 1,800,000 in the big blind, then Ionita four-bet all in for 11,000,000. Voinea snap-called with the shortest stack.
Ionut Voinea: A♣Q♥
Sebastian Ionita: J♣J♠
This flip could have been the last hand of the tournament. But on a board of Q♠9♦5♠K♠3♦, Voinea hit a better pair to double up. He now owns 85% of the chips.
For its first stop ever in Bucharest, the heavy Eurasian Poker Tour trophy will stay in the country, as Romania's Ionut Voinea managed to win the EAPT Bucharest €560 Main Event. At the 888poker Room, he explained he "ran pure". A statement confirmed by the heads-up play, where he quickly doubled up and then won the €36,000 first-place prize just a few hands later.
Voinea triumphed over 486 entrants, and especially over Sebastian Ionita, who finished second for €24,700, while Gheorghe Butuc took the third place (€17,200). On top of their cash prizes, the top four finishers also earned a package worth €5,000 for the EAPT Grand Final in Cyprus next fall. Overall, the tournament generated a prize pool of €223,560, which surpassed the €200,000 guarantee.
EAPT Bucharest €560 Main Event
Place
Player
Country
Prize
1
Ionut Voinea
Romania
€36,000*
2
Sebastian Ionita
Romania
€24,705*
3
Gheorghe Butuc
Moldova
€17,200*
4
Cristian Puscas
Romania
€12,750*
5
Alexandru Mitracu
Romania
€9,300
6
Cristian Rajala
Romania
€7,100
7
Vlad Murgulet
Romania
€5,700
8
Cristian Sandu
Romania
€4,650
9
Iulian Dragan
Romania
€3,785
*€5,000 EAPT Grand Final Cyprus package added
Winner's Reaction
"I'm tired, but I'm glad," Ionut Voinea briefly said when PokerNews asked him about his first reaction after he won.
However, it turned out he was a bit more talkative when he recalled the start of his tournament. And what a start it was, as he finished Day 1 as the overall chip leader. "I had a good end to Day 1c," he explained. "However, Day 2 was so-so because I was pretty much card dead." The evolution of his stack can attest to that, as he started Day 2 with 826,000 chips and ended it with 1,045,000, not much more.
A card-dead player who still managed to reach Day 3 and the final table. It was from this point that he started running "super super good," eliminating two players and securing a big double-up with kings against Butuc's queens when three players remained. "For the first fifty hands, maybe, nobody busted. But then, it lasted forty hands until the end, and I ran 'pure'. I just put the chips in, and the chips came back to me with interest. That's what I had to do; I'm just a lucky guy."
A technique of "no skills, just luck" which brought him to the top of the tournament, and perhaps already expecting more? "There are a bunch of options, but I'll most likely go to the WPT World Championship in Las Vegas in December." He claimed a €5,000 package today for the EAPT Grand Final in Cyprus next fall, "where he plays regularly," with a chance to lift a second EAPT trophy.
After Cosmin Dima (13th - €2,900) and Razvan Paduraru (12th - €2,900) were sent to the rail as well, two more eliminations were needed to reach the final table. For an hour, nobody moved. But within just a few minutes, Andrei Nodea (11th - €3,275) and Florentin Constantin (10th - €3,275) let go their last chips, allowing their nine tablemates to gather at the final table of the tournament.
Patience was key at the beginning of the final table, as very few boards were seen in almost two hours. But once Iulian Draganlost a flip to finish in 9th place (€3,785), the pace of eliminations quickened, with the shortest stack of all, Cristian Sandu, taking 8th place (€4,650) and Cristian Rajala ending up in 6th place (€7,100). In between, Vlad Murgulet could have hoped for more as he was second in chips at the beginning of the final table. But he ran into Voinea's trip jacks before losing the rest of his chips a few hands later (€5,700).