Joao Barbosa from Porto, Portugal gave himself the best birthday gift when he won the Pokerstars.net EPT Warsaw main event. With this win, not only did he won "¬367,140 in prize money but in the process he also became the first ever player from Portugal to win an EPT Event.
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What is commendable about this victory by Barbosa is the fact that he started the final day as a short stack on 7th position with only 123,000 Chips on Seat 5.
This was the position of the final table at the start of the day:
Seat 1- Arnaud Mattern - 238,000
Seat 2- Ludovic Lacay - 296,500
Seat 3- Andrea Benelli - 100,000
Seat 4- Michael Muheim - 89,000
Seat 5- Joao Barbosa - 123,000
Seat 6- Dario Minieri - 359,500
Seat 7- Nico Behling - 343,500
Seat 8- Sergey Shcherbatskiy - 349,000
Seat 9- Atanas Gueorguiev - 186,500
It can be said that birthday luck was on his side and poker gods smiled on him. He survived 2 major all in hands during the course of the day which set him up for victory.
First such hand was when he called Arnaud Mattern's all in with his 8s. Matten showed up 10s only to see luck go Barbosa's way when an 8 came on the turn to send Matten packing to the rails.
Next it was the turn of Atanas Gueorguiev to be on the other side of the birthday boy's luck when Gueorguiev's AK suited raise was called by Barbosa with KQ suited. The flop came K,4,3 and Barbosa led out to a check by Atanas Gueorguiev, who moved all in on him over the top. Barbosa called the raise to see his had outdone and was left praying for luck, which came again in form of a Q on the river to send Gueorguiev to the rail in 4th place.
Barbosa then went on to bust Pokerstars Pro Dario Minieri when he called the Italian pro's 77 all in with his 99 and both the players got no help from the flop, turn and the river.
It was down to heads-up play with Nico Behling from Germany, which went on for threee hourse before Behling went all in with J7 suited which was called by Barbosa with his A10 suited. Barbosa connected an Ace on the flop and river and turn did not give any help to Behling leading to the crowning of the EPT Warsaw winner.
With this victory, Barbosa has become one of the most promising player on the EPT after cashing in two of the three previous EPT events and winning his fourth one.
26 year old Barbosa would be a player to watch on the EPT circuit in future.
