In a thrilling conclusion to the €5,000 High Roller event at the 2024 Kings of Tallinn, Estonian poker player Markkos Ladev emerged victorious. Ladev has proudly reclaimed honor for his own country on the felt at the Olympic Park Casino, especially after no Estonian player made it past 35th place in the €555 championship and Herli Olop bubbled the final table of €1,100 Main Event.
Ladev faced Federico Cipollini in heads-up, clinching the title and the top prize of €47,290, leaving the Italian contender with a respectable €33,100. Having only recently burst onto the high-roller scene last year, Ladev’s latest win propels his tournament winnings to over $700,000. While Ladev tasted other bigger scores, securing a victory on home soil at the Kings of Tallinn has to be his sweetest achievement so far in his live tournament career.
2024 Kings of Tallinn €5,000 High Roller Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Country | Prize |
| 1 | Markkos Ladev | Estonia | €47,290 |
| 2 | Federico Cipollini | Italy | €33,100 |
| 3 | Pasi Sormunen | Finland | €23,750 |
| 4 | Eelis Parssinen | Finland | €16,250 |
| 5 | Marius Kudzmanas | Lithuania | €11,850 |
2024 Kings of Tallinn $5,000 High Roller Final Table Action
From an initial field of 29 players, the largest buy-in event of the festival whittled down to a final table of seven by the end of Day 1. Among them was a chip leader, Pasi Sormunen, followed by a Finish poker star, Eelis Parssinen, eyeing his second Kings of Tallinn title.
Two players had to hit the exit without pay before players were guaranteed a prize of €11,850. The first to leave was Mikael Haapaniemi, whose pocket jacks fell to Markkos Ladev’s ace-king. The bubble burst when two opponents outmatched Torsti Kettula’s king-ten, as Sormunen had a bigger full house over Parssinen’s lesser full house, holding 88 against AJ on a board of J994J.
Marius Kudzmanas’s departure followed soon after, a victim of Ladev’s runner-runner nut flush, which decimated his two pair of king-queen. Meanwhile, Federico Cipollini started catching up with the rest of the field, doubling up through Ladev, then eliminating Parssinen in a brutal hand where both flopped a straight. Cipollini’s ace-king crushed Parssinen’s king-nine on a QTJ flop, but most of the chips went in the middle on a river, where Finn couldn’t get away from his hand.
Cipollini’s momentum didn’t stop there as he took the chip lead while dispatching Pasi Sormunen, calling his all-in squeeze with king-queen against Sormunen’s ten-four bluff.
Despite entering the heads-up as a significant underdog with 1:3 odds, Ladev quickly turned the tables with a crucial win against Cipollini’s bluff all-in with seven-six while he held pocket queens.
Italian managed to come back and evened the score once, but it was all in vain. In the final hand, Ladev limped with pocket nines, and Cipollini pushed all-in with nine-eight. Flop 2TK offered only some runner-runner possibilities for Cipolinni and turn J kept those hopes alive with open-ended straight draw. King on the river sealed the victory for Ladev, keeping the €5,000 High Roller title in Estonia.
