Ljubisa Nedimovic is the poker.pro sponsored £150 4/5/6 Card Pot Limit Omaha Champion. Slovenian Nedimovic prevailed in the 193-runner event at the Beer Poker Tour London, at Genting Stratford, defeating Matthew Cox after a short but intense heads up battle, to claim the £6,290 first prize.
With 193 entrants across four starting flights, this was the largest field ever assembled at this casino for an Omaha tournament. The field included some legends of UK poker, including Ram Vaswani and Jac Arama, neither of whom made it through their starting days, despite having multiple bullets each.
Local legends Sam Acheampong and Dillan Patel along with Poker Against Plastic Pollution’s Karim Louis were among the 30 players who returned for the second day of the tournament, all earning a piece of the £24,340 prize pool.
Most of the players who had above average stacks from the starting days didn’t make it to the latter stages of the event. Justin Kyriakides was the overwhelming chip leader going into the day, but failed to make the final table, exiting in 10th place.
Anthony Robert also didn’t progress, although he played a significant role throughout Day 2. He had been the chip leader with over 2m when there were 12 players left, but busted in 9th place when he made an Ace high flush on an unpaired board, losing to a straight flush held by Matthew Cox.
By this time, Matthew had an enormous chip lead and after Lennox Haynes busted in 8th, took that stack onto the final table. With quite a few players short-stacked, it was not long before players started to fall once the final table began.
Sam Acheampong accounted for the first two eliminations on the final, busting Nigel Pinto (7th for £740) and then the short-stacked Matas Gerdzuinas (6th for £940).
Matthew Cox continued the strong aggressive game that had taken him to the chip lead, busting Lofti Baughanmi in 5th for £1,180.
Sam was the next to see his tournament life evaporate, when he and good friend Dillan Patel got it all in. They both had similar sized stacks, but Dillan covered Sam and his hand, which included two aces held up. Sam’s hand had included kings. Sam Acheampong departed in 4th place with £1,740 for his efforts.
Three Handed
With three players left Matthew still held the chip lead:
Matthew: 4.4m
Dillan: 3.5m
Ljubisa Nedimovic: 1.7m
But it was not long before a new challenger would emerge to take control of the final table. Slovenian Ljubisa Nedimovic was not scared to play big pots and won a series of pots from both players, whittling away at Dillan’s stack and playing big pots fearlessly against Matthew. He took the chip lead soon after in a massive pot against Matthew, which reduced the long-time chip leader to just 410,000.
It then looked very much like Ljubisa would get heads up with Dillan, however Matthew had other ideas and doubled up twice to get back to just under 2m chips.
But after Ljubisa busted Dillan Patel in 3rd place (£2,600), he took a 4-1 chip lead into the heads up stage.
Heads Up For The Pint Glass
For the next dozen or so hands, things got a bit cagey, with both players now firmly fixing their sights on the beer mug winner’s trophy. Matthew had increased his stack to almost 3m when the ultimate 6-card Omaha hand took place
Ljubo led out on a flop of J♦4♦10♥ and Matthew moved all in, Ljubisa tanked for a short while and called:
Ljubisa’s hand was Q♣Q♦J♥9♦8♥5♠, while Matthew held J♣10♦10♣8♦4♣2♥ and was ahead with two pairs.
He was still alive on a 4♦ turn, but the J♦ on the river dealt the fatal blow.
Matthew Cox was eliminated in 2nd place for £4,060, while Ljubo, as he prefers to be known, became the champion, collecting the top prize of £6,290
The final table was played in good spirits and Matthew warmly congratulated Ljubo for his victory, despite obviously being disappointed that the next beer he drinks will be from a regular pint glass and not from the very unique pint glass trophies that the tour is now famous for.
£150 poker.pro 4/5/6 Card Pot Limit Omaha Payouts
| Finishing Position | Player | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ljubisa Nedimovic | £6,290 |
| 2 | Matthew Cox | £4,060 |
| 3 | Dillan Patel | £2,600 |
| 4 | Sam Acheampong | £1,740 |
| 5 | Lotfi Boughanmi | £1,180 |
| 6 | Matas Gerdziunas | £940 |
| 7 | Nigel Pinto | £740 |
| 8 | Lennox Haynes | £580 |
| 9 | Anthony Robert | £450 |
| 10 | Justin Kyriakides | £400 |
| 11 | Mariusz M | £400 |
| 12 | Cezary Wasilowski | £330 |
| 13 | Habibur R | £330 |
| 14 | Karim Louis | £270 |
| 15 | Gary Dallison | £270 |
| 16 | Jonathan Weekes | £270 |
| 17 | Ryan Wakefield | £270 |
| 18 | Samuel Newsome | £270 |
| 19 | Anil D | £270 |
| 20 | Christopher Yong | £250 |
| 21 | Gaurav Kumar | £250 |
| 22 | Howard Bentley | £250 |
| 23 | Matthew Matranga | £250 |
| 24 | Dariusz K | £240 |
| 25 | Zack I | £240 |
| 26 | Alexandru V | £240 |
| 27 | Shahid Dawood | £240 |
| 28 | James Yeatman | £240 |
| 29 | Aleksandrs Bautra | £240 |
| 30 | Akshat Bansal | £240 |
