Christopher Puetz Takes Down WPT Germany Main Event

Germany’s Christopher Puetz is the newest member of the Champions Club having won the WPT Germany Main Event.

Puetz previously had two live poker tournament cashes to his name, both from King’s Resort. He cashed in both the €1,700 WSOPC Rozvadov Main Events in March and October 2019 for a combined €11,111. Now he has a €270,000 prize on his poker CV.

WPT Germany Main Event Final Table Results

Place | Player | Prize (EUR) | Prize (USD)
1 | Christopher Puetz | €270,000 | $292,802
2 | Laszlo Papai | €174,500 | $189,237
3 | Joep van den Bijgaart | €125,000 | $135,556
4 | Josef Gulas | €91,000 | $98,685
5 | Gianluca Speranza | €68,000 | $73,743
6 | Farukh Tach | €52,000 | $56,391
7 | Hossein Ensan | €40,000 | $43,378
8 | Renato Nowak | €31,000 | $33,618
9 | Rifat Gegic | €24,000 | $26,027

The final 73 players received a slice of the WPT Germany Main Event prize pool. This comprised of the 61 players at King’s Resort and an additional 12 who made it through to Day 3 online at partypoker.

Al Lami was the official bubble boy, an unwanted title but one that every poker tournament awards. Lami jammed five big blinds with from the cutoff and Artran Dedusha called on the button with . A king on the flop of the board put Lami ahead, but the river busted him.

Dedusha would later experience heartache himself as he burst the WPT Germany Main Event final table bubble.

A slew of former WPT champions, members of the Champions Club, crashed out. Oleg Vasylchenko, Stefan Schillhabel, Ryan Riess, and Konstantinos Nanos failed to add a second WPT title to their name.

Others who busted inside the money, but short of the WPT Germany Main Event final table included Tom Hall, Ben Jones, James Akenhead, Jack Sinclair, Martin Kabrhel, Anton Morgenstern, and the aforementioned Dedusha.

Unofficial WPT Germany Main Event Final Table Set

All eyes were on Hossein Ensan as the final table started. Ensan had the chance to become only the 10th player in history to win a Triple Crown.

Rifat Gegic was the final table’s first casualty. He open-shoved from the small blind for 16 big blinds with . Laszlo Papai was in the big blind and he called with the dominating . Neither player improved on the board, which busted Gegic.

Renato Nowak followed Gegic to the cashier’s desk shortly after. In a spectacular hand. Nowak raised to 125,000 under the gun with and Joep van den Bijgaart three-bet to 375,000 on the button with . Nowak called, leaving himself only 860,000 behind.

Those chips went into the middle when the flop fell . Nowak held top pair, van den Bijgaart middle set. Nowak improved to a Broadway straight on the turn, but his Dutch opponent filled up on the river. The surviving WPT Germany Main Event players gained a little more elbow room.

The WPT Germany Main Event reached its official six-handed final table when Ensan ran out of steam. Ensan fell foul of the hot-running van den Bijgaard and had to make do with a seventh-place finish.

van den Bijgaart Leads Official Final Table

It took 24 hands for the sixth-place finisher to be decided. Farukh Tach was that player. Tach jammed 1,200,000 (10 big blinds) from under the gun and Papai re-raised to fold out the active players. Papai flipped over and Tach’s needed some help.

Tach flopped an open-ended straight draw but he missed all his outs on the board.

Fifth-place was decided 17 hands later when Italy’s Gianluca Speranza fell by the wayside. Speranza open-shoved for 15.8 big blinds in the cutoff with . That man Papai called from the small blind with and Speranza was in a world of pain. Both players flopped a set on the board but it was Speranza who busted.

Josef Gulas was the WPT Germany Main Event fourth-place finisher. Blinds were now 100,000/150,000/150,000a and Gulas raised to 325,000 with . Papai called on the button with only to see van den Bijgaart shove for 5,600,000 with . Gulas called off his last 3,200,000 and Papai folded.

Van den Bijgaart’s nines held true on the board to reduce the player count by one.

Gulas busted on the 60th hand of the official final table and it took another 39 hands for the next elimination.

Papai min-raised to 400,000 on the button before snap-calling when van den Bijgaart three-bet shoved for 3,200,000. The initial raiser showed and was flipping against the of van den Bijgaart. Papai soared into the lead with an ace on the flop. The turn failed to alter the course of the hand, with the river confirming van den Bijgaard’s fate.

Chip Counts Almost Level Going Into Heads-Up

There was little to separate the two heads-up players, Papai and Christoper Puetz. A cooler hand changed that fact, however.

Papai raised to 500,000 with , Puetz three-bet to 2,000,000 with and Papai shoved. Puetz instantly called and the dealer spread the board. The same dealer counted the stacks and Papai was left with only 125,000 chips.

Papai was all-in automatically during the next hand, although he’d been dealt . Puetz revealed . A double-up looked on the cards when the flop fell , gifting Papai a set and Puetz two pair. The turn gave both players a full house, but Puetz’s was bigger. Papai needed the case four on the river, but it was the that arrived.

Puetz had won all 20,400,000 chips in play and became the WPT Germany Main Event champion. It was an accolade that came with €270,000, which included a $15,000 seat to the season-ended WPT Tournament of Champions.

Lead photo courtesy of the World Poker Tour / Tomas Stacha

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