First Two Bracelets Awarded at WSOP Europe

Przemyslaw Szymanski and Volodymyr Kokoulin have won the first two events at the World Series of Poker Europe, hosted at King’s Resort, Rozvadov in Czechia.

Only a couple of months after the action concluded in Las Vegas, we now have more WSOP events where 15 bracelets are up for grabs.

Przemyslaw Szymanski Takes Down Event #1: The €350 NLH Opener

The first event to finish at King’s Resort was Event #1: The €350 NLH Opener, where we saw Poland’s Szymanski defeat a field of 3,509 entries to claim his first gold bracelet.

The tournament narrowly edged last year’s total by a slim six entries to create a €1,039,014 prize pool.

Filtering through the Day 1 starting flights, 359 players lined up to return for Day 2 with only 20 coming back the following afternoon.

Przemyslaw Szymanski, Daniel Trunk, and Dmitrij Fadeev led the way as play restarted, but by the time of the final table stage the Pole’s stack had dwindled.

And then it got worse to leave him in danger of elimination before the gods answered and sent a couple of double-ups his way.

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The small pots continued to come in but the tide really accelerated in a hand against Fadeev where quad queens busted the German’s K♥ K♦ with A♦ Q♠ getting paid off on a board of Q♥ Q♦ 8♣ J♥ Q♣

And this roll just continued relentlessly. Pocket kings all-in against Alberto Speranzoni’s jacks set him up nicely when the heads-up battle against Trunk began.

It all ended in a hand where Trunk was in front with trips only for Szymanski to river a gin ace to turn his two pair into a boat.

Event #1: €350 NLH Opener Final Table Results

Volodymyr Kokoulin Wins WSOPE Event #2: €550 Pot-Limit Omaha

Ukrainian Volodymyr Kokoulin pulled off a miracle save to win Event #2: €550 Pot-Limit Omaha after facing elimination with only one card to come.

Facing the end of his event, Kokulin risked all his chips with two pair only to run into the set of kings held by Italy’s Claudio Di Giacomo.

A runner-runner flush out of nowhere meant he was now the chip leader rather than heading to the exit.

The PLO cash game specialist told how he spent seven years playing NL hold’em tournaments only to get bored and seek out the more thrilling four-card variant for added variance.

Poland’s Tomasz Kozub was the man who pushed Kokulin the hardest, attempting to mirror his countryman’s efforts in Event #1.

But it was always going to be difficult with the Ukrainian starting the heads-up match with an almost three-to-one advantage.

That lead became even bigger before Kozub found his first double-up, but soon afterwards his pair of jacks ran into queens.

A couple of hands later it was all done when Kokulin’s straight draw came in on the river to earn him his first WSOP gold bracelet.

In a post-event interview, he said:

“I just played normal games, 40 BBs mostly. The structure was super good. At the start of the final table I was in a very bad situation because there were three big stacks over me and some short stacks, so I could do nothing. 

“Then in the three- and four-max when stacks became more equal, I began to feel more comfortable.”

Event #2: €550 Pot-Limit Omaha Final Table Results