Friday, 29th March 2024 00:27
Home / Uncategorized / EPT9 Berlin final table: How long could this take?

There was a point yesterday when people looked out the window, saw that the sun was still up and asked each other “what shall we do tonight?” Play had reached its closing stages and with ten left it would surely only be a small matter of dusting off the last two players before play ended. Then everyone would be set free for an early night into the albeit wet Berlin evening.

Six hours later the sun had gone down and plans had turned to dust. Dashgyn Aliev didn’t leave in ninth place until five minutes before midnight and somehow we’d sat and watched it all, flinching at the double-ups.

But whatever sense of agony created it was tempered by the thought that the final table could not repeat it. Last night’s session raised the blinds so high that only two players began today with more than 40 big blinds.

daniel_gai_pidun_ber9_ft.jpg

Current Daniel-Gai Pidun


Right now the blinds are at 100,000-200,000 with a 30,000 ante, making the average stack less than 30 big blinds. At the end of this level they will be 120,000-240,000 with a 30,000, then a staggering 150,000-300,000 with a 40,000 ante.

So when looking at how long this could take, you could safely predict that things will be over sooner rather than later. It also depends on the manner in which chip leader Daniel-Gai Pidun uses his advantage.

As Eugene Katchalov in the EPT Live commentary booth suggested a short time ago, Pidun has one of the strongest positions in poker, with a big lead over opponents all on roughly the same amount. It’s his to win. Unless things get weird again.

Stephen Bartley is a PokerStars Blog reporter.

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