Main Event
Day 5 Started
2012 PokerStars.com EPT Berlin
Main Event
Day: 5
Event Info
Final Results
Event Info
Level Info
2012 PokerStars.com EPT Berlin
Buy-in
€5,000
Prize Pool
€3,725,000
Entries
745
Level
33
Blinds
100,000 / 200,000
Ante
30,000
Seat 8: Marc Wright, Liskeard, Cornwall, UK -- 1,540,000
Marc Wright, 25, has been a professional player for more than four years after quitting his job as a Retail Manager after nine months to concentrate on the game. Formerly from London, he now lives in Liskeard, Cornwall with his girlfriend and step-daughter. Earlier this month, Wright went deep in the Irish Poker Open and finished in 13th place for €15,400.
On the urging of his girlfriend, Wright travelled to Berlin this week to play his first European Poker Tour event, deciding even before he took his seat that he would begin to play more live events from now on.
With his recent IPO result being the largest of his live creer, his result today will be the biggest of his career. He'll begin the day sixth in chips.
Bio courtesy of PokerStars.
Seat 7: Bahadir Kilickeser, Bremen, Germany -- 4,640,000
Bahadir Kilickeser, a 33-year-old who works in wholesale and export trades, won his seat to Berlin in a €550 live satellite at the Spielbank Casino on Monday.
Kilickeser got his start in poker by taking up the game five years ago in the Weser Poker Lounge in his home city of Bremen. The Lounge now plans a big EPT final table party tomorrow in his honor — complete with a giant screen showing the EPTLive webcast so that all Kilickeser’s friends can support him from there.
This is his Kilickeser’s first-ever EPT and by far his biggest result he's posted in any tournament, ever. His only result on record is winning a €200 tournament at Spielbank Bremen for €6,000 in March.
Kilickeser, who is married, is also a successful amateur football player and now plays now for FC Union 60 Bremen in the sixth highest league in Germany. He enters the day second in chips behind Davidi KItai.
Bio courtesy of PokerStars.
Seat 6: Davidi Kitai, Brussels, Belgium -- 5,695,000
Davidi Kitai is already top of the Belgium all-time money list, having accrued nearly $1.8 million in live tournament winnings. Nearly half of that on those earnings have come from the EPT and Kitai has a chance here today to make it even more.
Despite his casual looks, Davidi Kitai is known as a fearsome player. He has numerous tournament accolades, including a World Series of Poker gold bracelet won in 2008. He conquered the $2,000 Pot-Limit Hold'em event to etch his name in the WSOP record books and score $244,583. On top of that, this is Kitai’s second EPT final. He came third at EPT Barcelona in Season 5 for €455,000, which is his best live result to date. Kitai also won the World Poker Tour Celebrity Invitational in 2011 for $100,000.
According to his professional profile, Kitai has all the qualities of a good tournament player: "cool, confidence and a touch of madness." As well as tournaments, Kitai is also an online cash game specialist, mainly playing pot-limit Omaha.
Kitai perfected his poker skills during a trip to Los Angeles in 2003. He had ventured to the United States to learn English, but it was Texas Hold’em that he mastered. Kitai goes into the final table as the chip leader with nearly 5.7 million in chips. He's the only play over five million and has over 25% of the chips in play.
Bio courtesy of PokerStars.
Seat 5: Andrew Chen, Ontario, Canada -- 3,600,000
PokerStars player Andrew Chen is a well-known Canadian online pro from Ontario, who has been a regular on the European Poker Tour for several seasons. He has made numerous live final tables, including the PokerStars.net LAPT San Jose and EPT Prague in 2008 along with a runner-up finish in a 2009 $1,500 World Series of Poker event.
The largest score of Chen's career came in the Season 6 EPT Grand Final when he took fifth in the Main Event for €400,000. The following January, he snagged his first major title when he won the $5,000 Bounty Shootout at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure for $263,100. At this year’s PCA, he was runner-up in the $10,000 6-Max High Roller for $191,984.
His live tournament winnings total more than $2 million and Chen could earn his first EPT title today. He'll enter with 3.6 million in chips and sits in third place overall.
Bio courtesy of PokerStars.
Seat 4: [Removed:284], Cologne, Germany -- 1,940,000
[Removed:284] has been playing poker since 2007 and initially started playing multi-table tournaments until he decided he was too old for multi-tabling. From there, he started focusing on playing online satellites to qualify for live events like the EPT.
[Removed:287]'s largest scores to date are seventh in the €4,000 European Championship in Baden in 2009 for €25,140 and 84th at EPT Berlin last season for €10,000. [Removed:287] thinks of himself as a recreational player. Outside of poker, his main job is as a field sales manager.
He qualified for this event in his third satellite for EPT Berlin and has already won his trip to the PokerStars and Monte-Carlo® Casino EPT Grand Final next week. He's also already booked his flight to Las Vegas for the World Series of Poker this summer, so we could be seeing a lot more of [Removed:287] in the coming months. He enters the final table fifth in chips.
Bio courtesy of PokerStars.
Seat 3: Mario Puccini, Hamburg, Germany -- 2,065,000
Economics student Mario Puccini has been playing poker since 2007. He’s well known in the German poker community for winning nearly a hundred tournaments on PokerStars in the last four years, including the Super Tuesday in 2009 for over $60,000. His last major win was taking down the PokerStars $55 rebuy for $12,500.
This is his fourth EPT Main Event cash. His best result so far was eighth place at EPT Loutraki in November for €27,000. He also finished 51st at EPT Budapest in 2008 and 32nd at EPT San Remo in 2010. He’s also had three final tables in EPT side events with his best being a third-place finish in a Dortmund €2,000 event for €42,000.
Puccini enters the final table with just over two million in chips and sits fourth overall.
Bio courtesy of PokerStars.
Seat 2: Pratyush Buddiga, Colorado Springs, USA -- 1,280,000
Pratyush Buddiga is fast making a name for himself in the poker world after already becoming a star in another world. In 2002, Buddiga won the prestigious Scripps National Spelling Bee contest — two years before his younger brother took down the same title. He bested 249 other contestants to win the title and $12,000.
Buddiga has made this European Poker Tour Berlin final table less than two years after taking up the game. He turned pro a year later after graduating from Duke University where he studied Economics. He regularly plays multi-table tournaments online and has benefited from the coaching he receives from poker superstar Mike "Timex" McDonald, who’s also been railing him here all this week.
Last summer, Buddiga racked up four World Series of Poker cashes in his first visit to the Series. His best score there was an in-the-money finish in the WSOP Main Event for $21,295. This is his biggest live result to date.
Buddiga travelled to Berlin with four friends. They'll all be on the rail supporting him tomorrow, along with many others he knows from the poker scene. He wasn’t planning on playing the PokerStars and Monte-Carlo® Casino EPT Grand Final next week, but that will certainly be under deep consideration given his result here in Berlin.
Our very own Lynn Gilmartin caught up with Buddiga on Day 4.
Buddiga will be looking to spell "double up" shortly after the cards are in the air — coming into the final table with 1.28 million in chips, Buddiga is the shortest stack of the bunch.
Bio courtesy of PokerStars.
Seat 1: César "CesarSPA" García, Las Palmas, Canary Islands -- 1,485,000
Law student César García is currently ranked the number one online tournament player in Spain and has a string of great online results. He was runner-up in the Sunday Million in August 2009 for over $200,000 and has also finished fourth in a Spring Championship of Online Poker rebuy event, fourth in the Sunday Warm-Up and won a $200 rebuy. What's more is that García also has a title from the World Championship of Online Poker in 2009.
García first took up poker after watching the EPT on TV. He and fellow students started playing home games in their university dormitory. In his first live tournament at the university in 2008, García came second. The following year, he played the same tournament again and won it for €6,000. This gave him a big enough bankroll to start playing online and also competing in live events, mainly at Casino Gran Madrid.
This is García's sixth EPT, but best live result to date. Previously, he came 39th in the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Main Event in 2010 for $59,000 and fifth in the EPT Deauville €2,000 side event for €30,500.
García’s parents César and Carmen have been here in Berlin all week, but he hasn’t let them watch him play in case it made him nervous. However, they will happily be on hand for today's final table rooting hard.
García enters the final table seventh in chips with 1.485 million.
Bio courtesy of PokerStars.
Kitai Leads Charge for EPT Berlin Title
Another stop along the European Poker Tour, another final table and another champion to be crowned. That's what's on the docket today here at EPT Berlin.
The Main Event is down to its final eight players, led by Belgian World Series of Poker gold bracelet winner Davidi Kitai. He's joined by notables Andrew Chen, Mario Puccini and César García.
Yesterday's action saw the field get cut from three tables down to just one. Everyone left has locked up a minimum payday of €72,000, but they're all licking their chips at the €825,000 that rests up top for the eventual winner. We don't know who's going to claim the top prize just yet, but we can tell you that whoever it is will be earning their first EPT title.
Coming into Day 4, there were still three former EPT champions in the mix, but none of them have made it to the final day. Vladimir Geshkenbein (10th - €51,000), Anton Wigg (14th - €30,000) and Kevin MacPhee (19th - €20,000) were the three former champions in the final 24.
Seating Assignments and Chip Counts
| Seat | Player | Chips |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | César García | 1,485,000 |
| 2 | Pratyush Buddiga | 1,280,000 |
| 3 | Mario Puccini | 2,065,000 |
| 4 | [Removed:284] | 1,940,000 |
| 5 | Andrew Chen | 3,600,000 |
| 6 | Davidi Kitai | 5,695,000 |
| 7 | Bahadir Kilickeser | 4,640,000 |
| 8 | Marc Wright | 1,540,000 |
The final table will be broadcast live, albeit on a one-hour delay, and you can read the player bios below. The live stream can be found over at PokerStars.tv while all your normal live updates will be feeding through right here on PokerNews. Coverage will begin at 1:00 PM local time.