Joris Ruijs Wins The Patrik Antonius Poker Challenge Main Event (€57,200)
Ever since Day 2, Joris Ruijs has held the overwhelming chip in the €1,500 Patrik Antonius Poker Challenge Main Event and he finished it off in style by becoming the tour's first-ever Main Event champion. The talented 27-year old Dutchman defeated Ville Jantunen heads-up to win his sixth-ever live tournament for €57,200 and push past $1.7 million in lifetime winnings on The Hendon Mob.
Ruijs was one of the 160 entrants in the inaugural Patrik Antonius Poker Challenge Main Event, a festival that celebrated the launch of the First Land of Poker (FLOP) app, which PokerNews will have an extensive article up about later this week. The namesake of the tournament, Patrik Antonius, is a household name in the poker world, and Ruijs was excited of the prospect of playing against the Finnish star.
"Antonius is a legend of the high stakes," Ruijs said to PokerNews after his victory. "It's somebody I've watched for hundreds of hours back in the days. Him, Dwan, and Ivey. So to battle with him in his own event, that was pretty great."
€1,500 Patrik Antonius Poker Challenge Main Event Official Results
| Place | Player | Country | Prize (EUR) | Prize (USD) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Joris Ruijs | Netherlands | €57,200 | $64,237 |
| 2 | Ville Jantunen | Finland | €39,100 | $43,910 |
| 3 | Kasper Mellanen | Finland | €23,800 | $26,729 |
| 4 | Matias Arosuo | Finland | €17,900 | $20,103 |
| 5 | Andrejs Punka | Latvia | €13,800 | $15,498 |
| 6 | Marvin Hannemann | Germany | €9,700 | $10,894 |
| 7 | Markku Koplimaa | Estonia | €7,810 | $8,771 |
| 8 | Sebastian Wahl | Finland | €5,950 | $6,682 |
Ruijs not only won the Main Event, but also finished in third place (€38,800) in the PAPC €10,200 Championship event that was won by Antonius himself, and finished just outside the money in the PAPC €25,000 High Roller where he also spent hours duking it out with the Finnish legend.
"The experience was really fun," Ruijs said, smiling. "At a certain point, you're not intimidated by the big names anymore. Then, it becomes super fun to play against these kinds of players. I'm pretty sure that four years ago, I'd have peed my pants," he laughed out loud.
The tournament was as perfect as they'd come for Ruijs, who held a monster lead after Day 2 and 3 and finished it off in style, only shortly surrendering the lead heads-up on an otherwise one-sided final table that was dominated by him from start to finish.
"It's pretty clear I ran super hot," was the first thing Ruijs said while reflecting on his amazing run. "But besides that, the field was also great, and it was a buy-in where the strongest opposition isn't ultra strong, so to say."
The buy-in may be considered on the lower end of the scale for the Dutchman, who's no stranger in five-figure buy-in fields, such as in Barcelona last year, or in Tallinn where he played both the €25K and €10K events. Despite the big difference in entry costs, Ruijs didn't have issues focusing on a €1,500 Main Event with a €57K first place prize.
"I actually think this is my strong suit," the Dutchman claimed. "I totally don't have issues with it. I only register a tournament when I actually want to play it. I like playing the live events, have a ton of fun in them and therefore, don't have any issues to focus myself after playing a much bigger buy-in event beforehand."
Ruijs Reflects on PAPC Main Event Final Table
Ruijs started the final table already holding 47% of the chips in play, and with a 3.5:1 lead over his nearest challenger Marvin Hannemann. Two of the strongest adversaries up front, inaugural Coolbet Open champion Sebastian Wahl and Estonian high roller Markku Koplimaa, came in on short stacks and busted closely after the start, and with the most experienced opposition gone it was mostly smooth sailing from there.
In regards to his upfront plans to approaching the final table with such an overwhelming lead, Ruijs had the following to say.
"I often see that a chip leader in this kind of situations just starts opening everything, but I find that a poor strategy. The final table is pretty deep, there are decent players there; if you start opening with junk everywhere they can simply call with good hands and you're starting to bleed chips."
"If you turn it down just a notch, but still understand that the ICM pressure you can put on the others is so large, you can size larger on flops and turns and put a ton of pressure on them that way That's something that works great in this spot so that's why I did it," Ruijs explained in regards to the large sizings he used throughout the final table, occasionally overbetting pots as well.
With Wahl and Koplimaa quickly out of the way, Hannemann was the next to fall next against Kasper Mellanen, leaving them with six. Ruijs shortly busted short stack Andrejs Punka next and Matias Arosuo tapped out shortly after when he lost a three-way all in against Ruijs and Mellanen. Former short stack Mellanen had worked himself up to a decent-sized stack because of it, but all that went out of the window when he three-bet shoved pocket sevens into Ruijs' pocket nines and failed to improve.
That left Ruijs and Ville Jantunen to battle it out heads-up. For three days, Ruijs had clinched on to the chip lead, but after losing pocket eights against the pocket aces of eventual runner-up Jantunen, followed up by a brutal cooler with a turned straight of straight, he was trailing for the first time in three days. The Dutchman was unfazed by the sudden challenge.
"By now, it's happened a couple of times to me [in his poker career], and simply put: you don't have to let it get it to you. I felt I have such an edge on him heads-up. He wasn't a bad player by any means, but he clearly wasn't as experienced and we were very deep as well," Ruijs stated. "After losing that pot, it briefly goes through your head that if you get coolered again, it's over, but you simply don't have to allow to get those thoughts to get to you."
Ruijs quickly turned it back around, reclaiming the lead after a hand where Jantunen bet-folded the river ("I had pocket deuces", Ruijs would admit later). In the final hand, Jantunen flopped bottom two pair and Ruijs top pair. Ruijs rivered a higher two pair, shoved all in over a bet from Jantunen, and the Finn called it off with the inferior hand to make Ruijs the tour's first-ever Main Event champion.
That wraps up the first-ever Patrik Antonius Poker Challenge festival, one that turned the eyes of the poker world to Tallinn, especially with the crazy high stakes PLO action going on. The PAPC will certainly be back for a second edition later this year at a yet to be announced location. Until next time!
