Welcome to the live report of the final day of the PokerStars EPT German Open, where the last eight players will battle it out for the title and the first prize of €933,600. Tournament director Thomas Kremser has just announced “Shuffle up and deal!” and we are off to an exciting day at Casino Hohensyburg. Michael “Timex” McDonald from Canada is the chip leader and probably the favourite to win this tournament.
These are the seatings and chip counts at the final table:
1: Mike McDonald 862,000
2: Diego Perez 744,000
3: Thibaut Durand 148,000
4: Johannes Strassmann 827,000
5: Christian Harder 339,000
6: Andreas Gülünay 560,000
7: Torsten Haase 369,000
8. Claudio Rinaldi 276,000
This is the fourth season of the European Poker Tour and for the first time ever a player has managed to reach two final tables in a row. Christian Harder finished seventh in the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure in the Bahamas three weeks ago. Now he's matched that performance by reaching the final table in Dortmund as well. Truly a great achievement. Christian starts out the final day sixth in chips.
During the first couple of hands, chip leader Michael "Timex" McDonald has shown some strength and has increased his stack to 961k. He just won a medium-sized pot from Diego Perez, who has dropped back to 644k.
In pre-flop action, Johannes Strassmann raised to 27k, Andreas Gülünay re-raised to 60k and Strassmann went all-in. After a minute of thinking, Gülünay mucks his hand and Strassmann increases his stack.