After two starting days and three consecutive days of play, no winner could be determined. After a 12-hour long final table, still two players with chips in front of them remained. Local player Hakim Zoufri took the lead late last night over his opponent Fabio Sperling from Germany who had dominated the final table till that moment.
At 4 pm local time, in about 3 hours, the two return to the felt in Holland Casino Amsterdam for the conclusion of the 2016 Master Classics of Poker Main Event. PokerNews.com will be on the floor to cover all the action from the first flop till the last river.
Fabio Sperling, with on the button, raised to 260,000 playing 3.6 million total. Hakim Zoufri found in the big blind and studied the stack of his opponent. He eventually decided to three-bet to 935,000.
Sperling contemplated what to do for just a bit, and announced all-in. Zoufri sighed for a second before he called.
A classic race was underway, a race with just a few possible outcomes. Unless a chop would occur, either Sperling would be back in the race or Zoufri would end it all after only half an hour of play on Day 5.
The flop came , not doing anything for either.
With the hitting the turn, Sperling had a ton of outs all of the sudden. Sperling was looking for an ace, queen or spade to double up.
He got none of those. Instead the hit and the German player living in the United Kingdom made his exit in second place for €184,820.
Hakim Zoufri has won the Silver Edition of the Master Classics of Poker in Amsterdam. On the additional day of play, Zoufri needed only half an hour to grind his opponent Fabio Sperling down. A classic flip ended it all and Zoufri was soon lifting the trophy and posing with the cheque worth €275,608.
Position
Player
Country
Prize
1
Hakim Zoufri
Netherlands
€275,608
2
Fabio Sperling
Germany
€184,820
3
Ivan Arbatsky
Kazachstan
€128,147
4
Juha Helppi
Finland
€92,057
5
Stefan Fabian
Romania
€68,514
6
Samuli Sipila
Finland
€52,584
7
Michiel Brosky
Netherlands
€41,447
8
Rashed Zade
Netherlands
€33,411
9
Charlie Carrel
United Kingdom
€27,349
As the casino closed at 3am on Friday night, the Main Event of the 25th anniversary of the MCOP needed an additional day of play. The two remaining players returned to the felt to battle it out for €275,608 while already guaranteed a payday of €184,820.
While Fabio Sperling had dominated most of the final table on the penultimate day and had held the chiplead for most of it as well, the final day saw a different picture drawn. It was Hakim Zoufri who dictated the action and it was just about a one-way street the way the chips were going. Zoufri made big hands and found value, and won the smaller ones as well.
It didn't take long before Sperling was down to thirty big blinds. Sperling opened with ace-queen suited and saw Zoufri three-bet. Sperling, a German living in the United Kingdom, moved all-in and Zoufri called with pocket sevens.
The most important hand of the tournament for both was underway, no more decisions to be made and their faith in the dealer's hands.
The flop brought no cards of any influence really, but a spade on the turn brought fear to Zoufri as Sperling picked up a flush draw on top of his aces and queens which were still live. A complete blank on the river, however, ended it all.
With that, Hakim Zoufri was soon getting handed flowers, a giant Heineken mug, a unique MCOP plate and of course the cheque worth €275,608. Zoufri is the latest addition to an impressive list of Master Classic of Poker winners that include Ole Schemion, Noah Boeken, David Boyaciyan, Ruben Visser, Ram Vaswani, Robert Mizrachi and Jussi Nevanlinna.
The Main Event of 2016 the Master Classics of Poker is in the books. The next big event coming up in The Netherlands is the Dom Classics in Utrecht in January. Besides a World Poker Tour and WPT National Event that has been featured on the Dutch poker calendar, the state-owned casino also announced last week that a World Series of Poker International Circuit will be held in Rotterdam in the fall of 2017.
That's it for PokerNews coverage of the 2016 Master Classics of Poker. Next up for the Live Reporting team is the Unibet Open in Bucharest next week, followed by a trip to Prague for coverage of the last ever European Poker Tour event.