Miha Travnik Wins WPT Slovenia! (€102,700)

The WPT Slovenia Main Event attracted 141 of Europe’s finest poker players but one man, Miha Travnik, has outlasted them all to become a World Poker Tour Champion.

The fourth and final day started with an unofficial final table of nine players but they were reduced to eight early on when Manuel Blaschke pushed his pocket jacks into the queens of Travnik. Thirty minutes later and the two short stacks, Patrik Hirvonen (8th place) and Hugh Cohen (7th) were eliminated.

This left the official final table of six and any one of them could have walked away with the prestigious title of WPT Champion. Italian Marcello Marigliano was the first to bust out, his [AcTh] failing to improve against Johannes Korsar’s [JcJh]. Half hour later and five became four as Gaetano Fortugno’s [AhJc] ran into Travnik’s [AdKc].

Ferdi Ciordbai finished third, the Romanian failing to get anything going all day long and when he did finally find a big hand, pocket tens, and he moved all in with them for his last eight big blinds and found a caller in the shape of the very vocal Vincenzo Natale holding just queen-eight offsuit . Just as a much need double up was on the cards for the Romanian the flop came down queen-eight-queen, ouch!

Three handed play became the Johannes Korsar and Natale show, with the pair clashing in several pots before the latter won a huge pot that crippled the popular Swede. On a board reading [4h4c2dQd3h] Natale moved all in and was snap-called by Korsar, the Italian showing [4d3d] for a full house, much better than the straight made with [6d5h] of Korsar. He never really recovered from that and was eliminated  an hour later, his pocket fours being out-flopped by the suited king-jack of his nemesis, Natale.

This sent the tournament to the heads-up stage, Natale leading local hero Travnik by 3,105,000 to 1,204,000 chips and over the next two hours this chip lead swung violently one way and then the other several times. The turning point came right near the end when Travnik had been getting under his opponents skin by winning lots of smaller pots and he managed to get the Italian to four0bet all in with just [9d8d]. The Slovenian called with [JhJd] and when the board ran out [2s2c6s3h8h] Travik held a massive 3,950,000 to 350,000.

With the Natale quite visibly on tilt, it was only a matter of time before his constant all in bets were called. And called one was, as Natale moved his stack forward once again, this time with [Kc8d] and was called by [AcJd]. The board ran out [7dJc5d2d10d] and with that Natale was eliminated in second place and Travnik announced as the champion!

The next stop on the World Poker Tour is the Legends of Poker at the Bicycle Casino in California, with the next European edition being the WPT Grand Prix de Paris on September 5-10. Join us here for the very best in live tournament updates, until then “nasvidenje” from everyone here in Slovenia!