PokerStars qualifier Nicolas “niccc” Chouity finished atop the pack in the European Poker Tour’s (EPT) Monte Carlo Grand Final in Monaco. His first place finish was worth a rousing €1.7 million and Chouity became just the second player from Lebanon ever to win an EPT title.
Last year, Chouity took 50th in the EPT Monte Carlo Grand Final for €31,000 and cashed in the EPT Berlin Main Event in March. He blasted through the final table in Monaco, taking out six of his seven opponents, and told PokerStars officials following play, “It’s a dream come true. I feel great. I had confidence coming into the final and I had the chip lead, but you never know with poker and I was going for first, only first.” Chouity came into the final table holding 40% of the chips in play and turned in a remarkable wire-to-wire run.
The EPT Monte Carlo Grand Final serves as the annual end-of-season stop for the roving tournament series, whose adventurous 2009-2010 schedule featured a high-stakes casino robbery in Berlin. Heads-up on the Mediterranean coast, Chouity defeated Josef Klinger with pocket aces against pocket eights. The board ran out K-10-9-4-Q and Chouity’s better pocket pair held to take down the EPT title.
Dominykas Karmazinas was eliminated in third place after his A-7 could outlast Chouity’s A-6. A six hit on the turn and Chouity staved off eight outs on the river to send Karmazinas packing. Chouity held better than a 5:1 advantage in chips entering heads-up play against Klinger. Then, Chouity joined Joseph Mouawad as the only Lebanese champions in EPT history; Mouawad chalked up a win in London during Season 4. According to PokerStars, the country of Lebanon boasts just one casino, which holds poker tournaments two times per week.
The worldwide affair attracted a starting grid of 848 players hailing from 51 countries around the globe. A total of 161 entrants, or nearly 20% of the field, won their way in through PokerStars, the world’s largest online poker site, and the feature table included representatives from six countries. Here’s how the eight-handed table cashed out in the 2010 running of the EPT Monte Carlo Grand Final:
1st Place: Nicolas Chouity (Lebanon) – €1,700,000
2nd Place: Josef Klinger (Austria) – €1,000,000
3rd Place: Dominykas Karmazinas (Lithuania) – €700,000
4th Place: Herve Costa (France) – €500,000
5th Place: Andrew Chen (Canada) – €400,000
6th Place: Aleh Plauski (Belarus) – €300,000
7th Place: Roger Hairabedian (France) – €200,000
8th Place: Mesbah Guerfi (France) – €140,000
According to PokerNews, the seventh season of the EPT will kick off in August in Tallinn, Estonia. The sixth season featured a bevy of name brand pros taking down titles, including UB.com’s Liv Boeree, who walked away victorious in San Remo. The total number of Main Event players during Season 6 was 8,912, a bump of 13% from Season 5, and the total prize pool grew to €56.6 million. All of this came despite a massive volcanic eruption prior to San Remo that caused travel tie-ups across the European continent. Here were the winners from EPT Season 6:
EPT Monte Carlo Grand Final: Nicolas Chouity
EPT San Remo: Liv Boeree
EPT Snowfest: Allan Baekke
EPT Berlin High Roller: Andreas Bauer
EPT Berlin: Kevin “ImaLuckSac” MacPhee
EPT Copenhagen: Anton Wigg
EPT Deauville High Roller: Martin Kabrhel
EPT Deauville: Jake Cody
PCA High Roller: Wlliam Reynolds
PCA Main Event: Harrison Gimbel
EPT Prague: Jan Skampa
EPT Vilamoura: Antonio Matias
EPT Warsaw Main Event: Christophe Benzimra
EPT Warsaw High Roller: Dario Minieri
EPT London Main Event: Aaron Gustavson
EPT London High Roller: Matt Glantz
EPT Barcelona: Carter Phillips
EPT Kyiv: Maxim Lykov
EPT Kyiv High Roller: Shaun Deeb
Visit PokerStars for full coverage of the EPT.
