Laurent Polito Wins WPTDeepStacks Brussels for €90,000 (~$105,300)

Laurent Polito has won WPTDeepStacks Brussels, after beating a field of 400 players to win €90,000 (~$105,300) including a package to the WPTDS Berlin in January.

Polito had already won an impressive four WPT National Events, with the last coming here in Brussels in July 2015, and took down WPTDS Brussels to add another title to his poker resume.

The runner-up was Leonardo Armino, who recorded the best live poker cash of his career, beating his second place in a WPT National High Roller last February, and a WPT National High Roller win in Valkenburg three years ago.

Here are the full results:

The day started with 12 players, and that was immediately one less after Michel Abecassis got his three big blind stack into the middle and lost to become our first casualty of the day.
Abecassis was soon joined by Frederic Femont and Bart Fergiatakis to bring the Main Event to a final table of nine.

Start-of-day chip leader Jerome Sgorrano was still the chip leader at this point, with Brazilian Felipe Ramos not far behind. Alain Bauer was the third player over two million chips at this point and playing a stack in excess of 90 big blinds.

With the majority of the final table deep-stacked it looked like it was going to be a long, drawn-out affair. However, it wasn’t long until Olivier Fehlmann got his pair of queens in against the ace-king of Leonardo Armino, with Armino spiking an ace to send Fehlmann to the rail.

Fehlmann came into the final table as the second shortest, and next to go was the short stack Frederic Leonetti who, like Fehlmann, got his remaining stack in good with pocket sixes, but again it was against the over cards of Armino, whose ace-ten hit a ten and Leonetti was eliminated in eighth place.

One of the most active players at the final table was Alain Bauer, who was in his fair share of pots, including one memorable one where he opened to 700,000 from under the gun which was an open for 15 times the big blind. All this meant one thing – Bauer was in the ascendancy.

However, what goes up must come down, and it came down with a bump. On an ace-four-seven board, Bauer got into a raising battle with Jeffrey Jol. Bauer shoved and Jol snap-called with a set of fours. Bauer meekly turned over King-high, and Jol doubled into the chip lead.

Big stack from Day 1B Sylvain Naets was next to go, after shoving his ace-jack into the ace-king of Felipe Ramos. He was then joined by Jol, whose stint at the top of the chip counts was brief as he got ace-ten in against the queens of Laurent Polito to bust in sixth place.

By dinner break it was Polito who held the lead, albeit a small one, with Jerome Sgorrano just 10,000 chips behind. Felipe Ramos was bringing up the rear, but quickly doubled to bring himself back into contention.

And when Bauer doubled through Polito, the stacks became very even indeed at the final table. However, you always knew that it could take just one fatal misstep from Bauer, and it came on a jack-high board. Bauer called with top pair, but was up against the kings of Polito, who moved back into the chip lead.

Leonardo Armino had been relatively quiet; a luxury of coming into the final table fourth in chips, and it was a stroke of fortune which saw him take the chip lead for the first time at the final table.

Holding king-ten against the king-queen of Polito, his ten of clubs proved vital as the board came with four clubs to send Armino into the lead.

Sgorrano had been chip leader at one point, but appeared to run out of steam as his Main Event came to an end at the hands of Laurent Polito. Ramos had also had a brief stint at the top of the leaderboard, and after doubling with ace-king against jacks, there was a cooler to send him on his way to the rail.

Armino limp-called preflop, check-called flop and check-called an all-in from his Brazilian opponent, where Ramos held queens, only for Armino to turn up with pocket aces. Ramos was left with crumbs and was sent to the rail soon thereafter.

Heads-up play began with both players fairly even in chips, but Polito soon exerted his dominance. He had the opportunity to finish it early, only for Armino to spike a king on the river.

However, as the levels ticked by, Polito opened up a gap once more, and called a three-bet jam from his opponent holding the best starting hand in poker – pocket aces – to finish it off just before 1:30 local time.