Moritz Kranich Wins First Season 9 WPT Stop at Bellagio Cup

The World Poker Tour was ready to launch into its ninth season after implementing changes like the reintroduction of Kimberly Lansing as anchor, addition of Matt Savage as executive tour director, and introduction of the Royal Flush Girls as decoration. With players still in Las Vegas from the WSOP, the Bellagio Cup VI started on July 11 with two full starting days and part of a third, giving players plenty of options and time to buy in.

All in all, there were 353 players in the tournament, with 243 of them entering on Day 1, a few more coming on Day 2, and the last of them, like Daniel Negreanu, Kathy Liebert, Chris Ferguson, Andy Bloch, Tom Dwan, and Phil Hellmuth, buying in during the first level of Day 3. By the end of that third night, there were only 31 players left in the tournament, though, and Eric Panayiotou was the chip leader with 1,225,000 chips, followed by Ravi Rahgaven with 959K.

Day 4 brought them back and pushed them toward the final table, and as that time of the night neared, Jeffrey Lisandro exited in 15th place, Paola Martin in 11th, Maria Ho in 10th, Rick Salomon in ninth, and Eric Panayiotou in eighth. Zach Hyman then became the seventh place finisher when his couldn’t beat the of Rob Akery on the 8-6-3-T-7 board. Hyman walked away with $84,965 on the final table bubble.

And the final table was then set for July 15 as:

Seat 1: Phil Ivey 1,595,000
Seat 2: Justin Smith 2,100,000
Seat 3: Rob Akery 1,980,000
Seat 4: Eric Afriat 620,000
Seat 5: Moritz Kranich 2,715,000
Seat 6: John Caridad 5,120,000

Play started somewhat slowly, though Eric Afriat was able to triple up to stay alive for awhile. But by the 46th hand of the night, he pushed for just under 1.1 million chips with against the of Smith. The board came to eliminate Afriat in sixth place, and he walked away with $118,950 for it.

Rob Akery moved only a few hands later with , and Ivey called with a dominating . The dealer gave them to end Akery’s tournament in fifth place, for which he was awarded $169,930.

John Caridad took some rough beats at the beginning of the tournament and couldn’t seem to recover, as players doubled through him and put him to tests for his chips that he wasn’t able to fade. Finally, the original chip leader of the table was down to little more than one million in chips and pushed with . Smith called with , and the board came . Caridad was forced out in fourth place with $237,902.

Kranich led the table of three, and though Ivey was aggressive on his short stack, he eventually lost a big pot to Kranich and had to move his last million chips all-in. He did it with , and Smith called with . The board of gave Smith the two pair, and Phil Ivey was gone from the tournament in third place with $363,650.

Heads-up play then started with the following counts:

Moritz Kranich 9,215,000
Justin Smith 4,915,000

Kranich immediately put his big stack to good use and chipped up further, but Smith was able to come back and double through twice to stay alive and nearly even the stacks. But Kranich stayed aggressive and put a distance between his lead and Smith’s stack again.

On the 186th hand of the night, Kranich put his opponent to the test with an all-in move, and Smith called immediately with . Kranich showed , and the board came to give Kranich the winning pair of kings. Justin “BoostedJ” Smith was eliminated in second place with $594,755.

Moritz Kranich, winner of the 2009 European Poker Tour Deauville stop, took his first World Poker Tour win, which came with $594,755 in prize money, as well as a WPT bracelet, watch, and trophy.