Raphael Wimmer emerged from a plight that saw him holding 4 big blinds to eventually overcome Josef Pavelka, in heads-up action, to win the first prize in the Eureka 5 Main Event in Rozvadov.

Austria has their first Eureka Main Event champion in the shape of Raphael Wimmer.

[Image Credit: PokerArena & Tomas Stacha]

The Season 5 opener in Rozvadov, Czech Republic, attracted 664 players, and created a total prize pool of €644,080. The nine-day festival was held in the Kings Casino, for the third time, and it generated over €1m in prize money spread over 22 different events.

The final table of the €1,100 Main Event was fairly low key. It was littered with inexperienced live tournament players. This included Wimmer, who had never before cashed for more than $8,000, and had never registered any success outside of his native Austria.

Two names that you may be familiar with are Marek Blasko and Hossein Ensan. Blasko is the winner of two German Championship of Poker (GCOP) titles, and there was a time that I thought he was going to walk away with a World Poker Tour (WPT) title, in Bratislava, before Roberto Romanello got inside his head and started screwing around with the wiring. Ensan finished third in the Season 11 European Poker Tour (EPT) Main Event in Barcelona for $860, 091.

Ensan would be the first to leave the contest in eighth place. Branislav Ondrus and Josef Gulas were next. Then there were five and €323,470 to play for. With an average stack of 13 big blinds, and a situation where Wimmer held half of the chips in play, it was decided to do a five-way chop that left €10,000 in the middle.