The Festival 2025 Rozvadov – Day 3 Recap
Day 3 of The Festival series has seen a record-breaking event champion crowned here in Rozvadov! The latest installment of the Hendon Mob Championship found its latest winner at Europe’s largest poker room, the King’s Resort, and The Festival’s first Schafkopf champion was discovered! Without further ado, let’s jump in.
Partner: The Hendon Mob
Record-breaking Hendon Mob Champion has been crowned!
Haik Tougu of Estonia took the title in the small hours of this morning after a marathon 14-hour session in the King's Resort cardroom. He bested the record-breaking field of 2,418 across the three-day event here in Rozvadov.
He bested German national Philipp Klok heads-up in just ten hands, due to having a fairly substantial chip advantage, having eliminated three players at the final table before going on to stack Klok.
Tougu has walked away with a career-best cash of €51,300, an incredible return on investment from the €150 buy-in, a total of 343x the buy-in! His largest ever cash before this event came back in 2016. He finished 2nd in a €110 No Limit Hold'em event at the OlyBet series in Tallinn for €2,100.
The Hendon Mob Championship Action
The Day 2 field of 292 condensed to under 100 at a fairly steady pace when the tournament began yesterday at 6 p.m.
The bust-outs eased off around the 65-70 player mark as shorter stacks were absorbed by the bigger stacks around the room. Seemingly, everyone came to play, and with a 20-25 big blind average in play across the room, stacks were fairly shallow. The general quality of play on display was solid from what was seen at the feature table, and I highly recommend that poker fans around the world check out the stream.
Final Table Play
u dispatched four players at the final table, but came into the final table in sixth place, with eventual runner-up Klok coming into the final table in first place, which just goes to show that anything is possible in poker and no deficit is insurmountable given a good string of cards and some run good.
Italian national "Sino" was one of a handful of players to make it into Day 2 with a stack of over 1,000,000 chips. He started in fourth.
Tougu's spin-up started when he dispatched Lukas Rath in eighth place. He won a flip with pocket fours versus Rath's ace-queen offsuit after the latter moved all in for five big blinds over Tougu's early position open to win a 10,000,000 chip pot.
A few hands later, Adrianus van Dongen was on the wrong end of a cooler as he ran pocket Queens into Tougu who woke up with Kings. Van Dongen opened from under the gun before Tougu three-bet from the small blind. Van Dongen called, and the runout was clean for Tougu, and he rocketed up the counts, having won the 60 big blind pot.
u and Klok tangled throughout. Klok won a classic preflop race with Queens versus Tougu's ace-king offsuit shortly after scooping the pot with Kings to peg back the eventual winner. He flopped top set to secure a crucial double-up.
The remainder of Van Dongen's chips eventually found their way into the stack of Tougu when Van Dongen moved all in on the turn of a double flush draw board. Tougu flopped a set of sevens, and Van Dongen couldn't improve.
Klok eliminated "Max Value" with both players having hit a four-liner to a flush in a preflop all-in situation. Klok made the nut flush with ace-nine offsuit which bested Max Value's nine-high flush with pocket nines.
Tougu then sent "Doofy Downswinger" to the rail, winning another flip with fives versus "Downswinger's" king-jack offsuit to take play heads-up with a substantial advantage, before going on to bust Klok after ten-hands of play. Below is the winning hand!
The Winning Hand!
The Hendon Mob Championship Final Table Payouts!
| Player | Country | Payout |
|---|---|---|
| Haik Tougu | 🇩🇪 | €51,850 |
| Philipp Klok | 🇩🇪 | €27,300 |
| Doofy Downswinger | 🇩🇪 | €18,800 |
| Max Value | 🇩🇪 | €13,700 |
| Adrianus Van Dongen | 🇳🇱 | €11,550 |
| Daniele Barbera | 🇮🇹 | €8,800 |
| Lukas Rath | 🇩🇪 | €6,700 |
| Sino | 🇮🇹 | €5,600 |
| Luca Venece | 🇮🇹 | €3,600 |
First Festival Schafkopf Champion Crowned!
A new king has been crowned in the "King of Bavarian card games." Roland Klaus Vollrath bested a 171-strong field over two days of play to win €7,000 and a beautiful glass trophy to add to his cabinet.
Vollrath is no stranger to cashing in Schafkopf events at Kings, as he finished fifth last year for €1,100 in the €155 King's Schafkopf Masters last year. Click here to see the full payouts.
For more on the rules and how Schafkopf is played, click here to learn more.
Today's Schedule - June 9th
| 09.06.2025 | Event | Guarantee | Buy In |
| 12:00 | Turbo Satellite to Mixed Games HORSES - Day 1A | €2,750 | €80 |
| 14:00 | Holdem 6+ Bounty (Short deck) (Bounty 25€) | €10,000 | €125 |
| 15:00 | Satellite to Mystery Bounty - Day 1B | €2,500 | €50 |
| 16:00 | Mixed Games Main Event HORSES - Day 1A | €25,000 | €550 |
| 17:00 | Sviten Special | €10,000 | €250 |
| 18:00 | NLH Mystery Bounty - Day 1B (100€ Bounty) | €100,000 | €250 |
| 19:00 | Super Satellite to Main Event | €5,500 | €80 |
| 20:00 | Cash Game Challenge PLO €2-€2 | ||
| 21:00 | PLO Freezeout | €10,000 | €250 |
| 22:30 | Cash Game Challenge TX NL €2-€2 |
That's all for now folks, stay tuned to the live blog and the social media pages for continued coverage from here at The Festival Series in Rozvadov.
