Davidi Kitai Wins EPT Berlin

On Saturday, April 21st, Belgium’s own Davidi Kitai joined an exclusive poker club. He won the European Poker Tour (EPT) Berlin Main Event and the Triple Crown. Kitai won three of poker’s most prestigious titles by winning a World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet, a Word Poker Tour (WPT) event, and European Poker Tour event. He won the WPT trophy last year at the WPT Celebrity Invitational, 2011 L.A. Poker Classic in Los Angeles. He collected WSOP honors back in 2008 by coming out victorious in the $2,000 Pot Limit Hold'em event.

The EPT gathered a field of 745 players in the German capital last week for a 6-day event to determine one champion. At the end of Day 4, eight players remained, making up the final table of the 2012 EPT Berlin. Kitai led the table in chips with a stack of 5.7 million followed by Bahadir Kilickeser with 4.6 million and Andrew Chen with 3.6 million.

Seating Assignments and Chip Counts

Various sources reported that the 2012 EPT Berlin final heads-up play was one of the most epic one-on-one sessions in this season's live tournament circuit. But before heads-up play began, the rest of the players at the final table received their part of the action as well.

The first one to leave the table was Pratyush Buddiga after going all-in pre-flop with Ac Qh against Bahadir Kilickeser's . Unfortunately for Buddiga the turn brought a ten eliminating him in eighth place for €72K. It was then Marc Wright's time to go when his didn't stand against Kitai's – Wright was eliminated in seventh place for €97,000.

Out in the sixth position was César García who hit the rail after pushing all of his chips to the middle holding A-K only to get busted by Mario Puccini's pocket queens. Kilickeser then finished in fifth place for €172,000 and was soon followed by Puccini who busted out in fourth place for €220K.

André Morath must have been extremely relieved to see Puccini go as Morath just kept losing chips, although he managed to double up through Puccini, (who dominated the game for quite awhile), just before his last hand. With just three players left things didn't change very much with Morath giving away his chips to Kitai and Chen until his final hand. Morath pushed all-in with and was called by Chen with . The board didn't bring any threes nor did it complete Morath's flush and he was out in third place for almost €300K.

Just after Morath's elimination Chen and Kitai went on a dinner break where the two agreed on a deal to split the prize pool into two almost equal parts leaving €80,000 to play for. When they came back to the table, it eventually ended with Kitai's victory. He added the €80K bonus to his winnings making a total of €712,000.

2012 PokerStars.com European Poker Tour Berlin Results

By winning his first EPT event Kitai scored the third championship event needed to earn the coveted Triple Crown. He joined the list of just five players who can also brag of wearing The Crown, including Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, Jake Cody, Gavin Griffin and Roland De Wolfe.

“I feel really great, it’s amazing. I never expected to beat this field,” said Kitai after winning the title.

See the full interview with the Belgian pro in the video.

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