Merit Poker Classic 2019
| Thu 2 - Mon 6 May | $ 2,000 + 200 No Limit Hold'em - Warm Up | IranMilad Oghabian Langar | $500,000 Guaranteed Prize Pool. |
| Thu 2 May | $ 1,000 + 100 No Limit Hold'em - Bounty | LebanonMichel Habib | $500 Bounty. $50,000 Guaranteed Prize Pool. |
| Fri 3 May | $ 600 + 60 No Limit Hold'em - Hyper Turbo Deep Stack Bounty | CyprusAngelos Michael | $300 Bounty. $25,000 Guaranteed Prize Pool. |
| Sat 4 May | $ 800 + 80 Pot Limit Omaha - Bounty | RussiaAlexander Denisov | |
| Sat 4 - Tue 7 May | $ 10,000 + 500 No Limit Hold'em - High Roller | SpainVicent Ramon | $500,000 Guaranteed Prize Pool. |
| Sun 5 May | $ 600 + 60 No Limit Hold'em - Turbo Deep Stack Bounty | BulgariaOleg Arabadjiev | $300 Bounty. $25,000 Guaranteed Prize Pool. |
| Mon 6 - Sun 12 May | $ 5,000 + 300 No Limit Hold'em - Main Event | CyprusAndreas Christoforou | $3,000,000 Guaranteed Prize Pool. |
| Mon 6 May | $ 800 + 80 No Limit Hold'em - Turbo Deep Stack | LithuaniaAleksandras Voisnis | $40,000 Guaranteed Prize Pool. |
| Tue 7 May | $ 1,500 + 150 No Limit Hold'em - Bounty | EgyptAhmed Abdella | $750 Bounty. $100,000 Guaranteed Prize Pool. |
| Wed 8 May | $ 600 + 60 No Limit Hold'em - Turbo Bounty | RomaniaAlexandru Papazian | $300 Bounty. $25,000 Guaranteed Prize Pool. |
| Wed 8 - Sat 11 May | $ 25,000 + 500 No Limit Hold'em - Super High Roller | GreeceIoannis Angelou-Konstas | |
| Thu 9 - Sat 11 May | $ 1,500 + 150 No Limit Hold'em - Mix Max | TurkeyGürcan Güngören | $125,000 Guaranteed Prize Pool. |
| Fri 10 May | $ 1,000 + 100 Pot Limit Omaha - 8 Max | RussiaOleg Makovenko | $25,000 Guaranteed Prize Pool. |
| Fri 10 May | $ 400 + 40 No Limit Hold'em - Hyper Turbo Bounty | TurkeyErsin Akkaya | $200 Bounty. $15,000 Guaranteed Prize Pool. |
| Sat 11 May | $ 2,000 + 200 No Limit Hold'em - Super Bounty | RussiaNatalia Panchenko | $1,000 Bounty. $100,000 Guaranteed Prize Pool. |
| Sat 11 May | $ 400 + 40 No Limit Hold'em - Turbo Deep Stack | $15,000 Guaranteed Prize Pool. | |
| Sun 12 May | $ 700 + 70 No Limit Hold'em - Deep Stack | RussiaOleg Bystrenin | $2,500 Guaranteed Prize Pool. |
| Sun 12 May | $ 500 + 50 No Limit Hold'em - 6 Max Bounty | KazakhstanYeznat Tumanshiyev | $200 Bounty. $20,000 Guaranteed Prize Pool. |
More than thirteen hours after the final day started, a winner has been crowned in the Merit Poker Classic $5,300 Main Event. It’s a home island win for Cyprus’ own Andreas Christoforou, who grabbed the first-place prize of $565,157 by defeating Israel’s Liran Twito heads-up. The tournament was organized by Merit Poker, in conjunction with partypoker LIVE and Poker Club Management here in the Merit Crystal Cove Hotel and Casino and attracted 649 entries in total, which included 211 entries, which created a total prize pool of $2,990,267.
2019 Merit Poker Classic Monday, May 6 through Sunday, May 12, 2019: Andreas Christoforou: k. 2019 Merit Poker Classic - $2,200 No-Limit Hold'em $1,000 Bounty - Poker tournament results, including winners and their payouts and winnings.
This win is Christoforou’s biggest cash ever in the live tournament circuit, nearly doubling his total winnings in one fell swoop (according to The Hendon Mob) and will take him to second place on the Cyprus All Time Money List. Christoforou started the day at the short stack but managed to wield himself through the minefield of eliminations to claim the win in the end with a huge rail cheering him on along the way.
Other notable players to have reached the final table of ten included the two partypoker pros Kristen Bicknell and Ludovic Geilich, Basil Yaiche, Anton Morgenstern, Mustafa Biz, and Florian Duta.
2019 Merit Poker Classic Main Event Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Country | Prize (USD) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Andreas Christoforou | Cyprus | $565,157 |
| 2 | Liran Twito | Israel | $416,245 |
| 3 | Kristen Bicknell | Canada | $254,770 |
| 4 | Daniel Braude | Israel | $188,685 |
| 5 | Basil Yaiche | France | $141,440 |
| 6 | Ludovic Geilich | United Kingdom | $113,330 |
| 7 | Selahaddin Bedir | Turkey | $94,490 |
| 8 | Anton Morgenstern | Germany | $75,355 |
| 9 | Mustafa Biz | Turkey | $56,515 |
| 10 | Florian Duta | Romania | $41,565 |
2019 Merit Poker Classic Main Event Final Day Action
Sixteen players returned at noon local time for the final day of the Merit Poker Classic, with start-of-the-day chip leader Geilich was off to a bad start when he first doubled up Anatoly Suvarov and Duta. Geilich quickly recovered by eliminating Sharar Levi, as well as Pavel Kovalenko. The latter went down with jacks against jacks, where the Scotsman spiked a four-flush to send him out. Despite doubling earlier, Suvarov was next to go when he shoved his last ten big blinds with queen-jack and also fell victim to Geilich who held ace-seven.
However, it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows for the popular Scotsman, and Christoforou started off his ascent towards the eventual victory by doubling through Geilich with a rivered a pair of aces against pocket nines. His stack still consisted of mere crumbs at that point: once the final table kicked off Geilich was holding the chip lead, while Christoforou was the second shortest stack.
Florian Duta and Mustafa Biz were the first to bow out from the ten-handed final table before notable German pro Anton Morgenstern fell in eight. It took three hours of eight-handed play before the German busted in a classic coin flip with ace-king versus Twito's pocket jacks. Selahaddin Bedir also got cooked by Twito, this time with Bedir holding jacks onto to walk into Twito's pocket aces. The blades held up to leave six at dinner with Twito leading.
After dinner, former chip leader Geilich fell to Twito when he ran jack-ten suited into the Israeli's ace-jack and didn't improve. Twito went four for four just five minutes after, taking out Basil Yaiche with eights versus sixes. Holding half the chips in play at that point, Twito ramped up the aggression on the other three, but it was Christoforou that took care of fourth-place finisher Braude to bring the field down to its final three hopefuls.
The three were ready to discuss a deal and agreed to look at the numbers but decided to play out the current hand first before entering negotiations. That decision proved to be crucial for Christoforou who doubled up with pocket queens through Twito to decrease the gap between them. The new state of affairs eventually resulted in a declined deal, which proved unfortunate for Bicknell as she busted out in third by shoving king-six into the ace-ten of Christoforou.
Numbers were once again considered, but no deal was agreed and play continued. The chip lead went back and forth over the span of almost two hours, and Christoforou held the lead when the final hand occurred. Twito shoved with ace-eight. Christoforou called with king-ten suited and turned a flush while avoiding another club on the river which would have given Twito the nut-flush. With the rail and Christoforou himself exploding from happiness, the Merit Poker tournament was over with the home town hero claiming the gold.
This concludes PokerNews live coverage from the Merit Crystal Cove & Hotel in Cyprus. There's plenty more from Merit Poker on the horizon. The next partypoker LIVE tournament is around the corner, when the Playground Poker Club in Montreal will host the partypoker LIVE MILLIONS North America event. PokerNews will be back on the floor to cover all the action.
Merit Poker Classic 2019 Winners
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