ANTON MAKIIEVSKYI ELIMINATED IN EIGHTH PLACE
Ukrainian Championship Finalist Busts Out – Pius Heinz Still the Chip Leader

Another player has bit the dust in his quest for poker’s world championship.

Anton Makiievskyi, from Dnipropetrovsk, Urkaine became the second player to exit from the WSOP Main Event Championship final table, following Great Britain’s Sam Holden (9th place) just moments earlier.  Makiievskyi suffered something of a bad beat on what turned out to be his final hand when chip leader Pius Heinz spiked a full house on the turn.  The two-outer knocked out the Ukraine’s top championship finisher.

The odds were stacked against Makiievskyi from the start.  He arrived at the finale as one of the shortest-stacked playerers, outchipped by a margin of more than 4 to 1 by the chip leader, Martin Staszko.  Makiievskyi meandered around this starting count (13,825,000) for around four hours before finally losing a coin flip on his last hand.

The Ukrainian hoped to double up into contention, which would have placed him with an average-sized stack had he managed to scoop the critical pot.  But his bold attempt to climb back into the final table race failed.  Accordingly, Makiievskyi joined the ranks of 6,857 other (eliminated) players who entered this year’s championship, the third largest live tournament ever, who are now forced to look forward to next year, and beyond.
 
Makiievskyi was eliminated on the 59th hand played at the final table.  The fateful hand came as follows:
 
Anton Makiievskyi:     
Pius Heinz:     
Flop:       
Turn:   
River:   
 
Makiievskyi moved all-in pre-flop with what many would consider a marginal hand, and was called by Heinz, who had his opponent well covered.  As things turned out, Makiievskyi was only a slight dog to the underpair.  The flop brought a king, which transformed Makiievskyi into the huge favorite.  But the turn was a thunderbolt and a nail, in the form of a nine, giving Heinz a full house – nines over kings.   A river blank gave the German chip leader the 20,000,000 pot and knocked Makiievskyi to the rail in eight place.

Nonetheless, Makiievskyi could certainly take great pride in what was a remarkable accomplishment.  He collected his biggest poker payout ever, $1,010,015 for eighth place.  This marked his second time to cash in a WSOP event, following an in-the-money finish in Cannes (WSOP Europe) last month.  Had Makiievskyi managed to win, he would have become the first Eastern European poker champion in history.

With six players remaining, there is a still lot more poker to be played.  Final table action is expected to last most of the day and will likely play deep into the night (Sunday).  Play will be suspended once the final three players have been determined.  The last three players will return to the same stage at the Rio on Tuesday night, with the final stage of poker’s world championship starting at 5:30 pm.

For the first time in history, poker players and fans everywhere can tune in and watch all the action live.  Comprehensive coverage with expert analysis also includes player hole cards being shown to viewers – a WSOP first.

CLICK HERE to watch live WSOP Main Event final table action.  For those who prefer to read a written account of the action, CLICK HERE to see the live log of every final table hand.

To see the latest chip counts of all remaining players, CLICK HERE.  Updates will be posted regularly as players are eliminated and chip counts change. 

The official report of the entire tournament, complete with statistics, historical information, records, and quotes from each of the nine players will be posted to WSOP.com at the conclusion of the tournament.