Poker Merit Cyprus 2010 Won By Andreas Krause

German pro Andreas Krause has won the Full Tilt sponsored Poker Merit Cyprus Classic championship 2010, after defeating a field of 181 players over six days to take down the title and the $415,780 first place prize.
Many top pros were drawn to the $10,000 buy-in tournament, including  David Benyamine, Sorel Mizzi, Michael Mizrachi, Filippo Candio, John Dolan and John Racener.
By the time the televised final table was reached Zsolt Vasvenszki was lying in pole position with 1.885 million in chips, followed by Van Marcus (1.436 million), Mathieu Clavet (940k), Andreas Krause (849k), Ahmet Ucali (420k) and Hakan Dalokay (266k).
Just a few minutes later, a short-stacked Hakan Dalokay was eliminated in 6th ($55,220) after pushing pre-flop with AQ and racing against Vasvenszki’s pocket 5’s.
Less than an hour later, Ahmet Ucali pushed his remaining 400k stack in pre-flop holding pocket J’s, but this time the AQ of Mathieu Clavet came out ahead and so Ucali left in 5th and collected $68,215 for his efforts.
Despite holding the chip lead, Vasvenszki was the next player to hit the rail after taking a double hit from Krause. First, he lost a massive hand holding AdKd to Krause’s AsJs with a J falling on both the flop and the river. Finally, with 10 BB remaining, he lost holding Ac4c to Krause’s pocket 10’s and so walked away with $90,950 for his 4th place finish.
Van Marcus then failed to hit any decent cards and so pushed pre-flop holding A6, when his stack had reached a critical level. Unfortunately, he ran into Clavet’s AJ and so was eliminated in 3rd for $162,415.
Heads-up, Krause held a 2 to 1 advantage over Frenchman Clavet, but the lead changed several times before the final hand when Mathieu Clavet was dealt Ac7s to Krause’s pocket 5’s. With all the money going in pre-flop, the board ran out Qs-3s-3c-3d-4d to knock-out Clavet in 2nd spot for a $285,850 pay-day.
In the meantime, Andreas Krause secured for himself the crown and his biggest score to date of $415,780. Krause has now earned around $2 million from live tournament cashes.