The fifth Concord Masters festival ended Monday in Austria’s beautiful capital Vienna with Hungarian player Erös Rajmund claiming the Main Event title and the first-place prize of €69,000. This is one of the most exciting Austrian live poker tournaments as it is played in various venues across the country with a total of 19 Day 1s. All entrants who qualify for Day 2 gather at the magnificent Concord Card Casino in Simmering, Vienna, for the finals.
This year, the Austrian €500,000 GTD Concord Masters championship took place at 9 different casinos across the country, with the first starting flight taking place on May 11. There were also two online Day 1s on May 7 and May 8 accessible on the partypoker network, where players could qualify for Day 2 for as little as €0.10 and win a €300 seat to the finals at Vienna’s Concord Card Casino. The event was an absolute success, organizers say, as it drew in a massive field of 2,143 direct entries and exceeded its guarantee to €636,849. Another 2,157 players had tried to qualify during Phase 1. After all registrations were counted, it was clear that the winner would take home a huge prize of €93,939, while the rest of the prize pool was to be divided between the top 237 players.
However, all was decided with a deal in the final moments of Day 3 on Monday, which started with 29 players fighting for the championship trophy. Austrian Andreas Heissenberger, the chip leader from the starting flights, was once again holding the largest stack, followed by Michael Strasser (Austria) and Marius Campan (Romania). Concord Masters 2016 Champion was the first to bust on Day 3 at 29th position and more eliminations followed until only a dozen of players were left standing. Israeli poker pro Eyal Bensimhon was then eliminated in the 12th place, followed by Campan on the 11th position, both eliminated by Heissenberger. The final table was finally set when Beatrix Wolfs was sent home in 10th place by Strasser.
Finalists Strike a Final Table Deal
The tournament ended surprisingly with a deal between the last four survivors on the final table, but before that, several players busted, taking home quite attractive cash prizes. Evangelos Bechrakis from Greece finished 9th with a prize of €6,500, followed by Swiss poker pro Theo Steimer who took home €8,000 and Romanian player Alin Toma who received exactly €10,000 for his 7th place. Pavel Novotny from the Czech Republic was the next player who left the fight (6th, €13,000) and although Heissenberger dominated much of the final table action, eventually he was eliminated in the 5th position and had to settle with a cash prize of €17,500.
Deals do not happen often in poker tournaments, but when they do, they are a great compromise for those involved. In this case, the last four players on the table, three Austrians and one Hungarian, agreed on a deal and based on the size of their current stacks, they finished in the following order – Andreas Weingartner (4th, €31,100), Walter Lederhilger (3rd, €50,439), Strasser and Erös Rajmund. While the biggest share of the prize pool (€64,000) was secured by Rajmund, and Strasser had to settle for the second position, the last €10,000 from the pot had to be played off.
In the unofficial heads-up for this last piece of the pie, the Hungarian defeated Strasser with King-4 against 5-2 on a board of 7-King-2-4-9. In the end, Rajmund banked a total cash prize of €69,000, while his opponent from Austria took home €55,400 for his runner-up position.
