Oleksii Kovalchuk has won the Italian Poker Tour Nova Gorica, after overcoming a field of 287 players over five days to lift the title, and collect the €150,000 ($215,177) first place prize.
Incredibly, the 21-year old Ukrainian only had his first live tournament cash this year, but with his latest win has now taken his career earnings to $911,810. Included amongst his triumphs in 2011 is WSOP success in the $2,500 NL six-max event for $689,739.
The €2,500 buy-in IPT event took place at the Perla Casino in Nova Gorica, Slovenia, on the border with Italy. In total, 111 players out of 287 survived Days 1a and 1b to reach Day 2. Day 3 then saw the field further reduced to a final table of eight with the finalists all guaranteed a minimum of €13,900 each.
The final table then got underway on Day 4 with Vitalii Minakov (Ukraine) in pole position with 1.671m chips, folowed by Domenico Cordì on 1.213m (Italy), Oleksii Kovalchuk on 1.097m (Ukraine), Marco Leonzio on 1.015m (Italy), Viliyan Petleshkov on 981k (Bulgaria), Luca Moschitta on 619k (Italy), David Zampini on 452k (France), and a short-stacked Gianfranco Mazzariello on 125k (Italy).
Eventually, the table played down to its last two competitiors in the guise of Team PokerStars Online’s Luca Moschitta, and Oleksii Kovalchuk. As Moschitta began to see his stack diminished, he shoved his remaining chips to the centre of the table holding Ks-6d, only to be called by his opponent with Qs-Jc.
The board then ran out 4h-Td-8c-Ad-Js, to relegate Moschitta to a runner-up finish worth €97,000 ($139,148), which now takes his live career earnings to $212,000.
In the meantime, Oleksii Kovalchuk was crowned the 2011 IPT Nova Gorica Champion, and with it demonstrated once more that he is a force to reckoned with in the world of live poker tournaments.
