After nearly seventeen hours of play today, Event #4: €2,000 Pot Limit Omaha finally came to its conclusion at the 2024 World Series of Poker Europe. Brazil’s Vivian Saliba emerged victorious outlasting a field of 229 entrants to capture her first WSOP bracelet here at the King's Resort in Rozvadov.
Saliba takes home the €91,400 first-place prize money from the €398,231 prize pool after defeating Germany's Markus Anheier in a short heads-up battle that spanned over two levels. This marks Saliba's second-biggest career score and sees her lifetime tournament earnings move over the seven-figure mark.
Runner-up Anheier had to settle for a payday of €59,700, which is roughly twenty times his biggest career cash to date. Closing out the podium was last year's champion Hokyiu Lee.
| Place | Player | Country | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Vivian Saliba | Brazil | €91,400 |
| 2 | Markus Anheier | Germany | €59,700 |
| 3 | Hokyiu Lee | Hong Kong | €40,100 |
| 4 | Alen Sabic | Bosnia and Herzegovina | €27,700 |
| 5 | Thomas Hueber | Germany | €19,700 |
| 6 | Samuel Albeck | Germany | €14,500 |
| 7 | Eran Carmi | Israel | €11,000 |
| 8 | Milan Skacel | Czechia | €8,600 |
| 9 | David Sosic | Croatia | €6,980 |
Saliba said she was relieved to finally get her hands on a bracelet, after making her fifth live WSOP final table.
"I was just like okay, please don't come second," she told PokerNews. "I was really aiming for the bracelet. Of course I feel happy, but to summarize my feelings in one word, it's relieved."
"It was a real marathon"
The Brazilian professional said she was able to concentrate and play at her best for both days of the tournament due to her experience and hunger for the bracelet.
"It was a real marathon, we played a lot yesterday and I went to bed around six in the morning. I could concentrate thanks to my experience and motivation, just because I really, really wanted to win. I'm very competitive and not even tired right now, I'm hyped!"
Salaba talked about her plans for the rest of her stay here at the WSOP Europe she said "Well, tomorrow I have Day 2 of the Mini Main starting at 2.p.m, so I need to go to bed and I have some rest to be at my best"
Just 50 players from a field of 229 players returned for Day 2, all hoping to be crowned champion, but the first target in everyone’s sights was the money bubble, where a minimum cash of €4,130 awaited the last 35 players in the field.
It took just ninety minutes of play for the bubble to burst, with Javier Francort, Vladimir Troyanovskiy, and bracelet winner Gabi Livshitz falling just short and leaving with nothing.
After three hands of bubble play, Austria’s Harry Casagrande became the last player to leave the tournament empty-handed when his ill-timed bluff was picked off by Fahredin Mustafov with aces.
With everyone now in the money, the action moved at a much faster pace. Players such as Kai Lehto, Stanislovas Vinicenka, and Rostyslav Sabishchenko got their short stacks in the middle but couldn’t spin them up to make a push for the final table.
Three-time bracelet winner and two-time champion of this event, Anson Tsang busted in twenty-fifth place just before the redraw for the final three tables. With the final table now within reach, it was the defending champion Hokyiu Lee who held the chip lead, and was the only remaining player in the field with a gold bracelet.
By the time the tournament reached the unofficial final table of nine, after short-stacked Goran Urumovic failed to improve when all-in preflop against David Sosic, Lee retained his chip lead and held almost double the amount of chips as any of his opponents.
Thomas Hueber entered as the table’s short stack with 13 big blinds and immediately put them to work, doubling up with aces. Sosic wasn't so fortunate with aces as his were cracked by Samuel Albeck's kings, making him the first casualty of the final table. Milan Skacel followed soon after, busting to Lee, who further extended his chip lead.
With seven players remaining, the short-stacked Albeck, Anheier and Hueber continued to double up. At the same time, Lee continued to apply maximum ICM pressure on the middling stacks with his relentless aggression. Eran Carmi was eventually the next to bust in seventh place when his aces got cracked by the straight of Saliba. Albeck followed closely behind before Hueber, who came into the final at the bottom of the chip counts, exited in fifth place.
During four-handed play, the chip lead moved back and forth with each player holding it at some point. Lee took the top spot back when he rivered a straight flush in a multi-way pot but was unable to get paid by Saliba's jack-high flush.
Anheier seemed to gain a second wind after twelve hours of play, going from the shortest stack to the chip lead in just a few hands, thanks largely to flopping top set in one hand and then doubling up through Sabic with pocket kings in the next.
Sabic narrowly missed out on a podium finish as Anheier rivered a flush to finish him off in fourth. When three-handed play began, the average stack was just 19 big blinds with Saliba as the clear short stack, holding less than half the chips of her closest rival, Lee.
However, Saliba doubled up twice through Lee, sending him into the danger zone before he eventually busted in third place to Anheier’s kings. There would be no back-to-back bracelets from this event for the Hong Kong player.
Saliba started heads-up play with a commanding 3:1 chip lead over Anheier. However, after just a few hands, Anheier was all-in and behind against Saliba’s pocket kings, only to find a fortunate ace on the turn to double up and take the chip lead. Saliba then found herself at risk, but a rivered flush kept her alive, allowing her to reclaim the lead. In the final hand of the tournament, Saliba turned another flush to beat Anheier’s two pair, then avoided a board-pairing river to secure the bracelet in Event #4: €2,000 Pot Limit Omaha.
That concludes the PokerNews live coverage for this event. Stay tuned throughout the 2024 WSOP Europe at King's Resort for continuous up to date coverage.