Marius Schneider Wins World Series of Poker Europe €550 Closer Event

The final event on the schedule for the 2024 World Series of Poker Europe was appropriately dubbed the ‘Closer’. The €550 buy-in no-limit hold’em affair attracted a field of 473 entries, resulting in a prize pool of $229,157. After two days of play, Germany’s Marius Schneider proved to a be a closer in his own right. He overcome a chip deficit heads-up, double into the lead and then converting his own advantage into the title in rapid succession.

For the win Schneider earned $48,840 and his first WSOP title. Prior to this win, his top recorded live score had been for just $1,529. Now, he is officially a gold bracelet winner. He was also awarded 360 Card Player Player of the Year points for the win.

The second and final day of play in this event saw 58 players return to Kings Resort Rozvadov with a shot at the title, all having locked up at least a min-cash for making it that far. Schneider was among the shorter stacks in the field with just 16 big blinds to work with.

Plenty of notables hit the rail as the field marched on to the final table, including two-time bracelet winners Ilija Savevski (55th) and Wing Po Liu (53rd), and bracelet winner Sergiu Covrig (17th).

The only player among the final nine with prior victories in WSOP events was Martin Kabrhel, who was just a few days removed from winning his third bracelet in this year’s WSOP Europe €50,000 buy-in high roller. He ultimately bowed out in eighth place ($4,246) when his pair and flush draw was unable to outrun the top pair of Tiberiu Tirca. Kabrhel’s career earnings now sit at more than $12.8 million after another successful WSOPE series.

Schneider won a flip with Q-J suited against the pocket nines of Ron Jeda (7th – $5,583) to narrow the field to six. Musa Jusaj (6th – $7,493) soon followed Jeda to the rail, with A-10 unable to beat the pocket tens of Ran Shahar.

Despite scoring that knockout, Shahar was ultimately the next to fall. He got all-in with top pair on a five-high board and found himself up against bottom pair and an open-ended straight draw for Schneider. The turn gave Schneider the wheel and he held from there to eliminate Shahar in fifth place ($10,434).

De Han Kim got all-in with A-10 leading the J-7 suited of Schneider, but a seven on the turn gave Schneider fourth pair and that ended up being enough to win the pot in the end. Kim walked away with $10,434 as the fourth-place finisher.

Ib Poulsen open shoved the last of his stack with Q10 from the button, only to recieve a call from a dominating A10 held by Tiberiu Tirca in the big blind. Neither player connected with the board and Poulsen settled for $21,423.

With that, Tirca entered heads-up play with 6,400,000 to Schneider’s 5,600,000. The two battled it out for about an hour before the decisive hand of the tournament arrived. Tirca limped in for 300,000 total from the button with K6 and Schneider raised to 900,000 from the big blind with AK. Tirca limp-shoved and Schneider called all-in. The board came down A5252 and Schneider doubled into a massive lead.

Tirca was left with just a few big blinds after the hand and was all-in in the next hand with 83 trailing the K4 of Schneider. The K1087Q runout secured the pot and the title for Schneider, while Tirca earned $31,968 as the second-place finisher.

Here is a look at the payouts and POY points awarded at the final table:

Photo credit: WSOP, Kings Resort / Tomas Stacha.