Ari Engel and Mick Graydon were heads up on a board of 
. Graydon checked, Engel tossed out 2,500, and Graydon called.
The river was the 
, Graydon checked again, and after tanking for 30 seconds or so, Engel unhappily checked behind. Neither player wanted to show their cards, and eventually Engel flashed 
for king-high. Graydon tabled 
for a pair of aces.
"I didn't think you were folding," Engel said.
"No," Graydon answered, smiling.
Two years ago, the UK's Roberto Romanello topped a field of 563 players to win the EPT Prague and the €640,000 first-place prize. It's always good to reflect, which is why we thought we'd reproduce the recap from that event as reported in our live blog back in 2010:
Roberto Romanello is the PokerStars.com EPT Prague Main Event Champion and a worthy one at that. Since Day 1b Romanello has been amongst the chipleaders and after defeating Emilliano Bono heads-up he now has the trophy, the title and €640,000 in his back pocket!
He came into the final table fifth from eight in chips but he played perfectly all the way through and thoroughly deserved to win each and every single one of the 16,890,000 chips in play.
Romanello has entertained his opponents and the media alike with his witty banter, his happy go lucky attitude and the fact that he is one of poker's true gentleman. Ask anybody in this industry to speak a bad word of him and you will not find a single soul who will do so.
After being overcome with emotion and having to leave the tournament area, Romanello composed himself and returned to rapturous applause from the spectators, staff, media and railbirds who had all gathered round to welcome the new champion.
After accepting the winner's trophy, Romanello asked if he could say a few words. After asking for a round of applause for the tournament dealers, who have been superb once again, Romanello had this to say to his supporters.
"The support was superb all week. I feel like everyone wanted me to win and it feels so good to actually do it."
This result is Romanello's biggest by a long shot, more than four times his previous largest cash, which stood at $200,000. However, you get the feeling from his reaction that the money, although extremely welcome, means less than being able to call himself EPT Prague Champion.
From everyone here at PokerNews.com, congratulations to Roberto Romanello, the 2010 PokerStars.com EPT Prague Main Event Champion!
| Buy-in | Entrants | Prize Pool | Number of Payouts | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| €5,000 + €300 | 563 | €2,730,550 | 80 | December 13-18, 2010 |
| Place | Player | Country | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | Roberto Romanello | United Kingdom | €640,000 |
| 2nd | Emiliano Bono | Italy | €435,000 |
| 3rd | Marcin Horecki | Poland | €247,000 |
| 4th | Peter Skripka | Russia | €163,000 |
| 5th | Marco Leonzio | Italy | €130,000 |
| 6th | Jan Bendik | Slovakia | €100,000 |
| 7th | Manuel Bevand | France | €71,000 |
| 8th | Roberto Nulli | Italy | €54,500 |
Level: 7
Blinds: 250/500
Ante: 50
Players are now on a 90-minute dinner break. When they return, they'll play two more levels before bagging and tagging. Join us then for all the latest and greatest from the EPT9 Prague.
Mariano Martiradonna and Albert Mykhaylyuta were heads up with the board reading 
. The two checked.
The turn brought the 
, and Mykhaylyuta led for 6,000. Martiradonna moved all in for effectively 18,000 or so, and Mykhaylyuta called.
Martiradonna quickly flipped over 
for a set of queens, and Mykhaylyuta shot up out of his chair to study both Martiradonna's hand and the board. He eventually slammed 
onto the felt for a lesser set, and the 
completed the board.
Mykhaylyuta was eliminated, while Martiradonna increased his stack to 82,000 chips.
Stuart Rutter is back up to his starting stack after firing three barrels into Mikhail Korotkikh.
Rutter opened the betting with a raise to 500 from UTG+1 and Korotkikh, in the big blind, was the only caller. The pair shared a 
flop, Korotkikh checked and then called Rutter's 800 continuation bet.
The turn was the and Korotkikh check-called an increased sized bet of 3,500 from Rutter, leading the duo to the river. Again, Korotkikh checked when the 
landed on the river, but as soon as Rutter bet 4,000 Korotkikh's insta-mucked.
With 22,000 already in the pot and a board reading 
, Artem Metalidi bet 12,175 and left himself just 9,000 behind. Russia's Maxim Panyak then tossed in a big stack of chips representing a raise, and Metalidi visibly shifted in his chair. The Ukrainian, who had commuted the vast majority of his chips, opted to fold and save his last 9,000. Panyak did not show his hand.
There was some action we didn't quite catch, but we can tell you that Jeff Sarwer had 4,750 out in front of him in the big blind when Richard Toth came in for a raise to 9,800 from the cutoff. Sarwer made the call and then checked the flop. Toth took the opportunity to bet 8,575, and it was good enough to get Sarwer off the hand.
It wasn't overly exciting, but it gave us the perfect excuse to update you on their chip counts.
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