Mikita Badziakouski Leads SHRS Europe Event #2: $50,000 Short Deck Final Table
The first Short Deck tournament of the 2022 Super High Roller Series Europe took center stage at the Merit Royal Hotel Casino & Spa in North Cyprus with Event #2: $50,000 Short Deck attracting a 42-entrant field that created a prize pool of $2.1 million.
Belarusian Mikita Badziakouski finished Day 1 as the dominating chip leader having amassed a chip stack of 5,660,000 – over double his nearest rival, and good for nearly half the chips in play. Sitting second in chips overall is Jason Koon, while rounding out the final table is Phil Ivey who currently sits ninth on the PGT leaderboard. The final six players have all locked up $105,000 in prize money, but all eyes are on the $756,000 first-place prize when the final table concludes on Saturday, April 9, with all the action being live-streamed on PokerGO’s YouTube channel.
As Event #1 of the Super High Roller Series was concluding at the TV table, the first of two Short Deck tournaments were underway. Many of the players that played and cashed in the two Triton Cyrpus Short Deck events were in the field in Event #2. PGT regulars including Ali Imsirovic and Chris Brewer, along with recent Triton Cyprus final tablists Mike Watson, Danny Tang, Ivan Leow, Sam Greenwood, Paul Phua, Elton Tsang, and Winfred Yu all succumbed to the rail.
Down to the final table of seven players, play was now on the money bubble, and after Ivey doubled, it would be Cary Katz being eliminated on the money bubble when his ace-king was outdrawn by the jack-nine of Badziakouski to end play for the evening.
Badziakouski looks to parlay his dominating chip lead into another high roller victory that will push his lifetime tournament earnings over the $32 million mark as he eyes Fedor Holz in 11th place with $32.72 million. With a fifth-place or better result, Koon can move into second place on the Short Deck All-Time Money List behind Paul Phua, but the player he will be looking to leapfrog is Ivey who currently leads the Super High Roller Series Europe championship standings with 1,039 points with this being his fourth cash of the series.
Malaysia’s Lee Wai Kait and Lun Loon will look to score the first victory in Cyprus for Malaysia with Kiat fresh off a second-place finish to Ivey in the Triton Cyrpus Event #3: $75,000 Short Deck. A win for Kiat will push him into eighth place on the Malaysia All-Time Money List. Rounding out the final table is PGT regular Stephen Chidwick who can climb ahead of David Peters and Erik Seidel into fourth place on the All-Time Money List if he is victorious.
SHRS Europe Event #2: $50,000 Short Deck Final Table |
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| Seat | Name | Country | Chip Count |
| 1 | Lee Wai Kiat | Malaysia | 1,215,000 |
| 2 | Stephen Chidwick | United Kingdom | 1,110,000 |
| 3 | Lun Loon | Malaysia | 515,000 |
| 4 | Jason Koon | United States | 2,620,000 |
| 5 | Mikita Badziakouski | Belarus | 5,660,000 |
| 6 | Phil Ivey | United States | 1,480,000 |
The final six players will return to the Merit Royal Hotel Casino & Spa on Saturday, April 9, at 1 p.m. local time with the final table airing on the PokerGO YouTube channel at 7 a.m. ET / 4 a.m. PT with David Tuchman and Brent Hanks on commentary.
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