Basketball Giant Max Neugebauer Wins Largest WSOP Europe Main Event
One of the principal events of poker autumn – WSOP Europe 2023 Main Event – came to an end in Rozvadov. The record-breaking tournament ended with the victory of a player who was difficult not to single out among all the participants of the final table. After all, it is not so often that you can see a person whose height is 203 cm at the poker table.
Not surprisingly, Max Neugebauer, the new WSOPE champion, used to be a professional basketball player. At one time, he played for the basketball club "Vienna", and also played for the youth national team of Austria. But due to a knee injury, Neugebauer was forced to end his sports career and switched to poker.
"It is always important for me to compete and work on myself. When I retired from basketball, I felt that there was a void in me, and poker helped to fill it."
Having passed the field of 817 entries, Neugebauer beat Taiwan's Eric Tsai heads-up. In the final hand (with effective stack of 40 big blinds) Tsai opened with J♦9♦, Neugebauer called with J♠️8♣️. The board showed Q♦️8♦️7♥️А♠️4♠️. Tsai three-barreled all-in, Neugebauer called it. And this gave him the biggest win of his career, as he had only $84,800 in live tournament cash before that.
"The bracelet itself means a lot. And that it is the WSOP Main Event, it means even more," said Neugebauer, surrounded by a crowd of supporters who cheered every pot and held up a "Max" sign throughout the final table. "Honestly, the most important thing for me is that my friends are here and support me. It was really great. I don't know what would happen if it weren't for them."
It is interesting that at the beginning of the game at the final table, the big stack leader was Taiwanese professional Eric Tsai. However, he did not manage to get the championship title. There were also satellite qualifiers among the finalists: Ruslan Volkov from Ukraine qualified for the event through a satellite costing only €500, and his result was the seventh place and almost two hundred thousand euros.
Top-three players in Main Event:
| Place | Player | Country | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Max Neugebauer | Austria | €1,500,000 |
| 2 | Eric Tsai | Taiwan | €891,000 |
| 3 | Michele Tocci | Italy | €639,000 |
Julianna Svyrydenko
