Winning a World Series of Poker bracelet is a dream for nearly every poker player, and the same was the case for Michal Schuh. Today, his dream became a reality when he took down Event #5: €550 NLHE Colossus at the World Series of Poker Europe for €171,350, besting a field of 2,799 entries. Poetically, he did so at King’s Resort in his home country of Czechia.
Schuh, a retired pro who now plays the game recreationally, overcame Dutchman Erik van Hulst in a back-and-forth heads-up battle. Van Hulst took home €117,350 of the €1,500,000 prize pool for his runner-up performance, more than 100 times his total live earnings. Meanwhile, Day 2 chip leader Georgios Tsouloftas was awarded the bronze medal and €88,350, while Paul Runcan managed to take his Day 1 chip lead to a fourth place worth €67,850.
| Place | Player | Country | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Michal Schuh | Czechia | €171,350 |
| 2 | Erik van Hulst | Netherlands | €117,350 |
| 3 | Georgios Tsouloftas | Cyprus | €88,350 |
| 4 | Paul Runcan | Romania | €67,850 |
| 5 | Vito Branciforte | Italy | €53,150 |
| 6 | Tomas Krivsky | Czechia | €42,450 |
| 7 | Pascal Pflock | Germany | €34,650 |
| 8 | Mousa Awad | Romania | €29,050 |
“It feels amazing [to win the bracelet]. I was waiting for a big score, and it finally came. I finally accomplished something,” Schuh said when asked what was going through his head after the win.
Schuh had a loud rail behind him, including his partner, who cheered with every pot he won. “It was actually quite a surprise for me because I did not know they were coming. They came just for the heads up,” Schuh stated.
Mainly a pot-limit Omaha cash game player, Schuh was unsure of further tournament plans. However, having two tickets for the WSOP Europe Main Event in his pocket, Schuh will be back in action in a couple of days to play in the €5,000,000 guaranteed event.
The final day of the tournament started with 16 players remaining. Only the top 14 would receive a ticket to the €10,350 WSOP Europe Main Event, which created a mini bubble where almost everyone played cautiously. Zoltan Vrancsik and Dohang Na started the day as the absolute short stacks, returning with two and seven big blinds respectively. Still, they chopped and doubled their way to respectable stacks early on.
Despite that, their fate seemed to be set in stone. Vrancsik was the first to go when the ace-four of Tsouloftas cracked his kings. Na’s time was up not much later, also losing with the best hand as his pocket jacks could not beat the ace-ten of Hong Pham. With a Main Event ticket in each of their pockets, the remaining players started to loosen up. Within half an hour, the tournament was down to the final table bubble, with William Trumm (13th - €19,250), who started the day as second in chips, as the most notable elimination.
Meanwhile, start-of-day chip leader Tsouloftas was faring better as he solidified his lead with a daring hero call against Andrea Ricci, giving him nearly twice as many chips as his nearest contender. Eventually, Tsouloftas eliminated his nemesis Ricci as the final table bubble boy, increasing his stack even more and setting the stage for the unofficial final table of nine.
Vietnamese grinder Pham was the last lady standing, but she only lasted two hands on the final table, jamming her ace-queen into the aces of Vito Branciforte. In the next hour, Tsouloftas kept increasing his chip lead before Mousa Awad fell in eighth place, losing a preflop flip against Schuh.
It seemed like Awad’s elimination opened the floodgates as the next hour saw the field shrink from seven to three. First to go was Pascal Pflock. Pflock witnessed his partner Vivian Saliba win her first bracelet just a couple of days ago but could not replicate her success and finished in seventh place. Schuh then scored his second knock-out of the final table when he busted Tomas Krivsky with ace-king against ace-queen. Schuh appeared to be on a hot streak, as not much later he eliminated Branciforte in fifth when his ace-jack bested Brancifortes ace-queen.
Runcan was the overall chip leader after all of the Day 1s, and he held that momentum to carry him to the final table. However, he only had a few blinds when he jammed his jack-five from the small blind. Tsouloftas found queen-jack in the big blind and comfortably held to eliminate Runcan in fourth.
The final three battled for quite a while, with Schuh and Tsouloftas sharing the chip lead when they began. However, that quickly changed when Tsouloftas bluffed off a significant portion of his stack early, with Schuh on the receiving end. The short-stacked Van Hulst received a lucky double-up while being dominated, leaving Tsouloftas in last place.
The tides shifted once more as Tsouloftas doubled up twice in a row to retake the lead. Not much later, however, a flush-over-flush situation against Schuh left him with less than 15 big blinds. Those went in with queen-eight against Van Hulst’s ace-ten, spelling the end of the start-of-day chip leader’s tournament run.
Van Hulst and Schuh traded the chip lead back and forth throughout heads-up. However, Van Hulst mistimed a crucial bluff and was left with less than ten big blinds. Those went in one hand later with king-four. Schuh called with ace-jack and flopped trip aces to take down the tournament, his largest-ever live score, and, of course, the golden bracelet that he sought after so much.