Just five months after finishing 15th in the World Series of Poker Main Event and five weeks since a win at EPT San Remo, Pateychuk came all the way back from a 15-1 chip disadvantage against Spain’s Adria Balaguer heads-up to take the title in Prague.
Pateychuk adds €468,200 to his cash total to push him upwards of $2 million for the past five months alone. With a WPT and EPT title under his belt, he's also now just a WSOP bracelet short of poker's triple crown.
Without a doubt, Pateychuk has had to hit some cards at opportune times to make it happen.
He rode a sick beat to his EPT title back in October and had to find the same run-good magic in Prague to save himself heads-up against Balaguer.
Down 15.6 million to 1.5 million in the chip counts, it looked all but over.
Pateychuk shoved the last of his chips in holding K♠ J♣, but Balaguer made a light call with T♦ 9♠ and the K-J held for the double up.
The very next hand Pateychuk picked up A-K, doubled through Balaguer’s A-Q and the game was on again.
It took another couple of hours of back-and-forth heads-up play and some more run-good for the tourney to be decided however.
On the final hand, Pateychuk raised to 600,000 and Balaguer moved all-in for his last 4 million.
Pateychuk called with A♥ 5♠ only to find Balaguer flip over pocket queens.
Still, Pateychuk couldn’t be beat. A four on the flop plus a running 3-2 finish gave him the wheel and the victory.
Disappointed as he must be, Balaguer still earns an impressive $320,381 for his runner-up finish.
An Epic Final Table
All told the final table took over 10 hours to play out at the Kings Casino in Prague today.
Short-stack Russell Carson, Norwegian Sigurd Eskelund and Frenchman Benjamin Pollak went out in sixth, fifth and fourth respectively.
Chip leader coming into the day, Stanislaw Kretz, busted in third.
The final six and their payouts, courtesy of wpt.com:
1. Andrey Pateychuk $630,263 2. Adria Balaguer $320,381 3. Stanislaw Kretz $212,690 4. Benjamin Pollak $139,999 5. Sigurd Eskelund $107,691 6. Russell Carson $84,807For a full recap of all the day's action, check the WPT live updates pages.
Check out the winner's interview with Pateychuk below:
Bonus Prague Coverage: the Jungleman Cash Game
As an added bonus WPT Live Streaming will also be broadcasting the Dan "Jungleman12" Cates High-Stakes Cash Game live from the Corinthian Towers casino starting at 10:30am ET tomorrow.
Expected to play in the game are Cates, Luke "FullFlush_1" Schwartz, high-roller specialist Phillip Gruissem and more.
Check out the live feed here.
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