The end is near for the European Poker Tour’s Grand Final, playing out at the Monte Carlo Bay Hotel & Casino, as the final 26 players have been determined who will contend for the final championship of the EPT’s Season Eight schedule.
130 players came back on Saturday with the unpleasant task (for some of them) of determining who would take home some money. Leading the field was Team PokerStars Pro Max Martinez, who held a slightly more than 40K chip lead over Mohsin Charania. Lurking behind these two men, however, was one of the biggest names in the game, Erik Seidel, who looked poised to take even bigger steps towards this EPT title after his play on Friday.
Martinez got off to a nice start when, at the beginning of play, he knocked out Javier Candelas to increase his chip lead. On the other end of the spectrum, Annette Obrestad – who had been running well through the early stages of the event – dropped a chunk of her stack against Anatoly Gurtovoy when she couldn’t call his river all in for a healthy pot (Obrestad would unfortunately fall short of the money). Others who saw their chips slip through their fingers and hit the exits during the early play were Marcel Luske and World Champion Pius Heinz.
Seidel spun his wheels through the first few hours of play on Saturday. His Big Slick was outdrawn to knock his stack down and it never seemed that the Poker Hall of Fame member was able to gain any ground throughout the early action. For Tudor Grangure, the story was a bit different; he was able to knock off the dangerous Andrey Danilyuk, who finished fourth in last year’s Grand Final, when his K-Q ran down the pocket tens of Danilyuk. That hand would push Grangure up to the top slot of the leaderboard as the money bubble drew closer.
After over three hours of play, the money bubble popped in a rather rapid fashion. Adam “Roothlus” Levy was officially knocked out in 98th place and became the “bubble boy” after his A-Q couldn’t catch up to Vadzim Markushevski’s pocket Aces; on the very next hand, both Martin Finger and Andrew Badecker were eliminated on two separate tables. With their elimination – and the resulting chop of the minimum €15,000 96th place payday – the remainder of the field was in the money.
Over the next six hours, the players flowed out of the Monte Carlo Bay Hotel & Casino. From the time the money bubble burst, 70 players would be knocked out, a stunning average of over eleven players per hour. Some of those getting a little something for their efforts included Jose Barbero, Noah Boeken, Day Two chip leader Martinez, Nicolas Chouity, Pierre Neuville, Maria Ho (all for the €15K payout), David “Doc” Sands, Leo Margets, Guillaume Darcourt, Sandra Naujoks, Seidel and Justin Bonomo (all for €20,000).
Bonomo’s knockout was the next to last of the evening and it allowed for a new leader to step to the forefront. Bonomo cast his lot with A-Q, only to run into Geert-Jan Potijk’s pocket Queens and Andrew Pantling’s A-K. The board ran blank, giving the huge pot to Potijk and pushing him well over the million chip mark and into the lead.
1. Geert-Jan Potijk, 1.32 million
2. Bernard Guigon, 1.212 million
3. Georges Dib, 1.118 million
4. Andoni Larrabe, 1.071 million
5. Ben Vinson, 1.039 million
6. Lucille Cailly, 999,000
7. Pratyush Buddiga, 970,000
8. Anatoly Gurtovoy, 945,000
9. Sergio Castelluccio, 944,000
10. Vadzim Markushevski, 922,000
The lone female player left in the EPT Grand Final is Cailly, who had pushed as high as third place before dropping some chips. Another interesting name on the leaderboard is Buddiga, who finished the EPT Berlin in eighth place and is looking at going a bit deeper this time around. Others looking to challenge Potijk are Jason Wheeler (11th, 903K), Charania (12th, 875K) Dimitar Danchev (447K) and a short stacked Amit Makhija.
It could be a long Sunday of poker for the remaining 26 players as plans are for the players to stay with the game until the official EPT final table of eight has been determined. This will lead up to tomorrow’s final table, where the eventual survivor will walk away with one of the most prestigious championships in poker and a €1.5 million payday.
