Vitaly Lunkin Wins $1 Million At EPT Barcelona Super High Roller

Russian professional poker player Vitaly Lunkin has won the EPT Barcelona’s €50,000 Super High Roller, after besting a field of 40 players over three days on his way to capturing the title, and collecting the €771,300 ($1,031,757) first place prize.
The 2-times WSOP bracelet winner now takes his live career earnings to an impressive $5,465,180, putting him just behind Ivan Demidov ($6,826,568) and Igor Kurganov ($5,602,783) on the Russian all-time money list. Following his remarkable victory in Barcelona, Lunkin commented:
“I’m really happy. Until this summer, I hadn’t really played any big tournaments for about three years, but I decided to play the World Series and finished 46th in the Main Event. This helped me regain some confidence in my game so I sold some shares to friends, and came to Barcelona in a very good mood. I respect Erik a lot. We’ve known each other for many years.”
The Super High Roller event attracted a small but tough field which, including 11 re-buys, to create a prize pool worth €2,448,765 ($3,275,677). By the time the final table of seven had been reached, Germany’s Ole Schemion was the chip leader, with the other formidable players at the table including 2013 November Niner David Benefield, Timothy Adams, Steve O’Dwyer, Mike McDonald, Erik Seidel, Fabian Quoss, and of course, Vitaly Lunkin.
Eventually, Erik Seidel would reach heads-up holding a slight chip advantage over Lunkin, but the Russian was able to reverse the deficit before the final hand was played with Lunkin’s A-5 up against the K-Q of Seidel. The board subsequently rolled out 6-A-6-8-4 to relegate the US legend to a runner-up finish worth €557,100, while Vitaly Lunkin was crowned the EPT Barcelona Super High Roller champion.
Final table results as follows:
1st Vitaly Lunkin €771,300
2nd Erik Seidel €557,100
3rd Steve O’Dwyer €355,100
4th Mike McDonald €269,400
5th David Benefield €208,150
6th Ole Schemion €159,200
7th Fabian Quoss €128,515