Ole Schemion Wins WPT European Championship Main Event For €218,435

Seven years on from his first recorded cash, German Ole Schemion showed once again that home advantage can be a real driver of success as he took down the WPT European Championship Main Event for €218,435 ($255,352) in Berlin.

That €54,200 payday back in 2011 for taking down a €1k buy-in event at EPT 7 in his home city proved to be a springboard for the then 19-year old Schemion who would add titles galore and several 7-figure wins to his name, with almost $14million in tournament winnings to date.

This week saw him return to Berlin for the first-ever WPT Main Tour event to be held on German soil, a 339 entry field at the Spielbank Berlin Casino paying €3300 per head and just cracking the €1,000,000 guaranteed prizepool.

Not everyone survived the party atmosphere which Berlin is renowned for…

…but Schemion had his mind set on bigger things, a WPT Main Tour title on the wishlist of every self-respecting big-name pro – his German compatriots Dominik Nitsche, Dietrich Fast, Marvin Rettenmaier and Stefan Schillhabel all bagging the bragging rights previously. The Berlin man was certainly giving it his all, rarely off the top of the list during the five-day tournament…

The final table was a hard-fought affair for all but the top spot, Schemion easing his way through the remnants of the field and eliminating Syria’s Amjad Nader in 6th place followed by Han Kuo Yong in fifth.

Yong hitting the rails ‘sparked a run of three eliminations in five hands’ as the WPT blog describes it, Patrice Brandt taking care of a short-stacked Michael Behnert, and then falling to Schemion’s sword after his flush draw shove on the flop was called by a gutshot draw, neither hand improving and Schemion’s ace-high disposing of his compatriot.

Twenty hands was all it took for the Austrian-based pro to overcome the heads-up challenge of Czech pro Michal Mrakes, another busted flush draw by the river spelling victory for Schemion and that all-important WPT title – with the small matter of the money and bonuses to sweeten the win.

Final Table Results

*First-prize amount includes a $15,000 seat into the season-ending WPT Tournament of Champions.