European Poker Tour Baden Open Winner Julian Thew

The PokerStars European Poker Tour Baden Open took place at the Congress Casino just outside of Vienna, Austria. The town of Baden is small but brought in 282 players who bought in at $8,000, making the prize pool $2.14 million. The final table of the tournament held eight people and Julian Thew from Nottingham, England came up with the win.

At the final table, Russian player Vladimir Poleshchuk, seemed to be the first player with all the luck. He put out the first three players of the match. The first to go was Anton Allemann from Switzerland. He lost with A-K against Vladimir's K-9 when he hit two pair. The second to go was WSOP bracelet winner Ted Lawson. Lawson went out when Vladimir hit a flush with his A-9 of hearts. The Russian then put our Manfred Hammer from Germany and it left only five players at the table.

The luck finally changed and Thomas Fuller gained some chips when he put out Thierry van den Berg from Holland in fifth place. Now with only four players, the luck seemed to go back and forth between poker players. That is until Thew hit a flush and put Fuller out in fourth place. Then the Russian was finally put out when Kalo got a straight with his K-J and beat Vladimir's A-Q. Vladimir received $225,000 for third place.

Then it was time for heads-up play. It went on for a while until Thew called Kalo's A-5 with an A-8 and Thew's cards were better so he was the winner. Kalo went home with a prize of $375,000 while Thew won $670,800 and a $10,000 buy-in to the EPT Grand Final in Monte Carlo.