EPT Champ Ronny Kaiser (Photo courtesy of PokerStars Blog/Neil Stoddart)

The first European Poker Tour stop of Season 8 is in the books and Ronny Kaiser set the bar for this year’s group of EPT champions with his dominating performance in Tallinn. Kaiser climbed to the top of the counts during Day 3 action and stayed there for most of the action, plowing through his final table competition in the span of less than five hours to collect the trophy and the €275,000 first place prize.

When the final table began, Kaiser hit his only real hiccup of the tournament. He lost the chip lead when Grzegorz Cichocki won one of the first hands of the day. Kaiser rebounded by eliminating Arvi Vainionkulma when his 44 outflipped Vainionkulma’s AK. That hand helped pad his stack and keep him second in the counts, but he lost some other key pots early that put his title hopes in jeopardy.

Kaiser righted the ship by eliminating Finnish online poker phenom Sami Kelopuro in seventh place when Kaiser turned the wheel and called Kelopuro’s river shove, picking off Kelopuro’s bluff with ace-high and taking out one of the most experienced players at the final table.

Kelopuro may have been out of the way, but another Finn with a lot of poker accomplishments to his credit was heating up. Jani Sointula picked up pocket kings to double thru Stuart Fox and his AQ. Sointula added more chips to his stack a short while later by eliminating Erlend Melsom in sixth place when his AQ spiked a river queen to best Melsom’s AK and send him home. What was bad news for Melsom was great news for Sointula, as well as Fox, who had just two big blinds after doubling up Sointula earlier and managed to jump up the pay scale at Melsom’s expense.

Fox headed home minutes later in fifth place at the hands of Kaiser, who was back in control and leading the counts. His big stack just got bigger after taking a big pot off Sointula. Cichocki also picked up some big pots at Sointula’s expense, leaving the Finn short on ammo. Sointula managed to double thru Kaiser, but he would give it all back when his AK lost a race against Kaiser’s 77.

Raigo Aasmaa found himself in the top three alongside big stacks Sichocki and Kaiser. Even though he did not win, his feat was nonetheless a big accomplishment. Aasmaa was the only Estonian at the final table and, in fact, is the only Estonian to ever make an EPT final table. The local hero’s run in the Main Event ended with a third place finish after he took a stand with KT only to run into Cichocki’s pocket aces.

Early in the heads-up battle, Kaiser extended his chip lead and Cichocki fell back under the 2 million-chip mark. Kaiser delivered the knockout punch when Cichocki four-bet shoved all-in preflop for his last million chips with 68. Kaiser was ready to close things out, calling with A9. Kaiser flopped a pair after the board fell AK5 and by the time the T hit on the turn, Cichcki was drawing dead and Kaiser was the EPT Tallinn champion.

Last year, Kaiser came close to his first EPT final table in San Remo, but ended up busting in 20th place. This time around, there was no flame out for Kaiser. Instead, he kicked off the EPT season with a bang, winning his first major title and €275,000 with a flourish.

Next up for the EPT is its annual pilgrimage to Barcelona. That tournament action will get underway in just a couple of weeks on August 27th.

Here are the final table results from EPT Tallinn:

1st: Ronny Kaiser – €275,000
2nd: Grzegorz Cichocki – €180,000
3rd: Raigo Aasmaa – €110,000
4th: Jani Sointula – €80,000
5th: Stuart Fox – €55,000
6th: Erlend Melson – €45,000
7th: Sami Kelopuro – €35,000
8th: Arvi Vainionkulma – €25,000

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