Andrey Pateychuk has become the World Poker Tour Prague Main Event champion after outlasting a star-studded, record-breaking field of 571 competitors.
Pateychuk flew under the radar for the vast majority of the tournament, in fact the only time he came to our attention was when he turned up for Day 3 more than three hours late, his 120,000 starting stack being blinded away slowly but surely. But he eventually turned up and did what he does best, accumulate chips.
The Russian, who finished 15th in the World Series of Poker Main Event this summer and recently won the EPT San Remo Main Event, started the day third in chips but after Russell Carson, Sugurd Eskeland and Benjamin Pollak were eliminated there was never any real doubt he was going to add a WPT gong to his name.
The man who started the day as chip leader, Stanislaw Kretz, bled chips all day long and when he was busted out after around 6.5 hours of play it left Pateychuk and Adria Balageur to battle it out heads-up for the the title and the not so shabby first place prize of €468,200.
The one-on-one battle lasted close to three hours and the chip lead swung violently from one competitors to another, both coming back from the death a couple of times. But it was Pateychuk who refused to lay down, he was like a Marvel superhero! He trailed Balageur 15:1 in chip at one point but still came back to win!
The final hand was the fitting for the match because it was typical Pateychuk. Down to 13bb Balageur moved all in with 
and Pateychuk, supported by an army of Russian fans on the rail, called with 
. The 
flop gave him a flush draw whilst the 
turn gifted him a straight draw too. The inevitable 
made him a straight and with that WPT Prague had been completed and Pateychuk became the champion.
- 1st: Andrey Pateychuk: €468,200
- 2nd: Adria Bagaleur: €238,000
- 3rd: Stanislaw Kretz: €158,000
- 4th: Benjamin Pollak: €104,000
- 5th: Sigurd Eskeland: €80,000
- 6th: Russell Carson: €63,000
