The biggest tournament in the history of the EPT yesterday welcomed the last 26 players from the former 7,398 entries, and the goal of the day was to bring the tournament closer to the final lineup. That was indeed achieved, and the 8 hours of play, which you could also watch live in the Live Stream, was closed by the elimination of the biggest star of the day - Parker Talbot.
In the chip lead with almost a third of all chips in play is Lucien Cohen, a 59-year-old player who already has an EPT title under his belt, which he won back in 2011 in Deauville. On the way to the title, however, he will be faced, for example, by Danilo Velasevic, a 35-year-old Serb, who has two SCOOP titles to his credit and this year also a cashout from the challenging Triton London, or Ankit Ahuja, who has more than 1,5 million dollars live tournament winnings on his account.
All six players are guaranteed €136,850 cashout at this moment, but there is still a lot to play for - the champion will take home €676,230 in prize money in addition to the trophy and the title of the winner of the biggest EPT event in history. The final day starts at lunch today, players jump into it with blinds of 500k/1m, but you can also look forward to the Live Stream, which you can find again on our website!
chipleader Lucien Cohen
Seating and chipcount of the final table:
- Lucien Cohen – 65,500,000 (66bb)
- Avihai Smadga – 11,000,000 (11bb)
- Petros Karadimos – 42,200,000 (42bb)
- Ferdinando D´Alessio – 30,100,000 (30bb)
- Danilo Velasevic – 40,900,000 (41bb)
- Ankit Ahuja – 32,200,000 (32bb)
Last night, in addition to the final six of the €1,100 ESPT event, we also got to know the champion of the €100k Super High Roller, which was the Norwegian representative Kayham Mokri. Even so, the greatest attention was drawn to the French businessman Jean-Noel Thorel, whom you surely remember as the "policeman" who swept the world's best in the London Triton, and he rode a similar wave yesterday.
In Barcelona, it was much easier for him, as the field of this tournament produced only 18 entries, but this does not in any way degrade his success - he dealt with names such as Sam Grafton, Steve O'Dwyer and Timothy Adams at the final table. He found the only opponent in the aforementioned Norwegian, who condemned Thorel to second place (€471,500), and he secured the EPT trophy and a financial bonus of €750,960 for himself.
Another tournament that took place yesterday was the second day of the €2,200 ESPT High Roller, in which 98 players advanced. Those who did successfully make it to the top 10, are led by Conor Beresford. There are still nine opponents standing in the way of the trophy and the €629,990 reward, led by Antoine Labat from France, who is currently second.
Well, to make sure that event wasn't enough, yesterday we also witnessed the opening day 1A of the main event of the entire festival - the €5,300 EPT Main Event. The counter of entries reached 791 on the first day, from which 260 advancers were formed by the end. They are led by Finnish player Toni Kaukua (346,000), but others like Dimitar Danchev, Dominik Panka, David Docherty, Benjamin Chalot, Maria Ho, Gianluca Speranza and Andre Akkari also continue to play.
Source: PSlive, PokerNews, YouTube, Flickr, PokerFirma
