Today is the final day of the European Poker Tour stop at the Casino San Remo in Italy, and the final eight men lined up to vie for the title today should provide for an exciting climax to the second stop of the EPT’s Season Nine schedule.
On Wednesday, the final 24 players stepped to the green baize to send sixteen of them home with their dreams of an EPT championship dashed. Jason Tompkins was at the helm of the ship with his 2.423 million in chips, but challengers lurked behind every corner. 2012 World Poker Tour Grand Prix de Paris champion Matt Salsberg, Jonas Mackoff, Yevgeniy Timoshenko, Michael Benvenuti and Day Two/Three leader Inge Forsmo all were ready for battle when the cards hit the air yesterday afternoon.
Forsmo would take an early hit as he would double up Micah Raskin to see his chip stack dip to 1.2 million. After flopping trip fours, Forsmo would be able to draw in Raskin (with pocket sevens) for all his chips and seemed to be on his way to a knockout that would push him into the lead. Although the turn brought a blank, Raskin saw his two-outer come home on the river seven to make a full house and put himself among the chip leaders.
Soon afterwards, Forsmo’s meltdown would be complete. Going to battle against Lavallee, the twosome would see a 5-4-6 flop, which Lavallee bet 205K on and Forsmo made the call. On a nine turn, Lavallee had enough, pushing out a bet that covered Forsmo’s remaining stack. Quickly, Forsmo made the call and showed…A-10 for only an Ace high. A stunned Lavallee, searching for a reason for Forsmo’s call, tabled his pocket Queens and faded the three remaining Aces in the deck to knock out Forsmo in 23rd place.
Lavallee would put those chips from Forsmo to good use, once again using pocket Queens to chop some chips from Angelo Recchia to move over the three million mark. At the same time, Lacay began making his own moves in taking a huge 1.5 million chip pot against Tompkins to push his stack up to 2.8 million. Perhaps sensing Lacay closing in, Lavallee would use pocket Kings to vanquish Negjdel Avdyalj’s pocket Jacks to crack the four million chip plateau.
Lavallee and Lacay would be the dominant forces as the Day Five action went into the evening, maintaining their 1-2 slots on the leaderboard. Tompkins, however, didn’t seem willing to let those two have all the glory, grinding his stack back up to over three million chips before Recchia knocked off Amerigo Santoro in ninth place to set up today’s final table action:
Seat 1: Ludovic Lacay, 5.366 million
Seat 2: Jason Tompkins, 3.605 million
Seat 3: Adrian Piasecki, 2.045 million
Seat 4: Micah Raskin, 1.55 million
Seat 5: Jason Lavallee, 5.545 million
Seat 6: Ismael Bojang, 2.845 million
Seat 7: Angelo Recchia, 1.755 million
Seat 8: Artem Litvinov, 800,000
Lavallee and Lacay have drawn away from the field a bit and arguably have the most experience of any of the final table members, but that is a precarious perch to stand upon. Every one of the third through fifth place players (Tompkins, Bojang, Piasecki) are a double up away from getting into firm contention for this EPT title, while it will take some work for Recchia, Raskin or the short stacked Litvinov to make a serious drive at the championship.
The final table will begin at 10AM (Eastern Time) in the United States, which is the afternoon in San Remo, where a victor from this tournament will be determined. Up for grabs among the eight men is the €800,000 first place prize and the chance to join the pantheon of champions crowned by the European Poker Tour.
