Betfair Official Blog

EPT Grand Final Day 4

Welcome to Team Betfairs Live Blogging. We are down to just 39 players here at the pokerstars.com sponsored EPT Grand Final in Monte Carlo...

We're at the business end here in Monte Carlo. The further we go the bigger the money gets and the bigger the jumps get between each payout level. This is big time poker and there's no room for doubting yourself now. 'The Magician', Antonio Esfandiari, is top of the pile with nearly 1.2 million in chips but he has to watch out for Johnny Lodden who's not far behind and due a final table. Then there's Joe Hachem and Freddy Deeb who are further back but can never be discounted. Full list of chip counts and today's table draw below....

Name Country Chips Table Seat
Glen Chorny Canada 344,000 1 1
Andreas Fluri Switzerland 61,000 1 2
Amit Makhija USA 269,500 1 3
Anthony Chatelain Sweden 83,500 1 4
Alexander Morozov Russia133,000 1 5
Miara David 249,500 1 6
Raymond Rahme South Africa Team 133,000 1 7
Johnny Lodden Norway 623,000 1 8
Eric Liu USA 398,000 2 1
Benjamin Sprengers USA 127,000 2 2
Tomas Brolin Sweden 74,000 2 3
Claudio Pagano Italy 291,000 2 4
Rami Boukai USA 425,000 2 5
David Shade Kruger USA 486,500 2 6
Stig Top Rasmussen Denmark 373,000 2 7
Antonio Esfandiari USA 1,198,000 2 8
Oyvind Riisem Norway 340,000 3 1
Robin Keston UK 916,000 3 2
Denes Kalo Hungary 642,000 3 3
Gerasimos Deres Sweden 494,500 3 4
Stefan Geim Germany 58,000 3 5
Henrik Gwinner Denmark 487,000 3 6
Peter Traply Hungary 300,500 3 7
Isaac Baron USA 236,500 3 8
Joe Hachem Australia Team 214,500 4 1
Noah Siegel USA 388,500 4 2
Walid Bou Habib Lebanon 127,500 4 3
Valeriy Ilikyan Russia 295,000 4 4
Andrew Luetchford UK Cash 116,000 4 5
Mostafa Belkhayate Morocco 523,000 4 6
Maxime Villemure Canada 600,000 4 7
Pablo Ubierna Spain 316,000 4 8
Luca Pagano Italy Team 279,500 5 1
Jonathan Dwek Canada 282,000 5 2
Thomas Boekhoff Germany 465,000 5 3
Freddy Deeb USA 140,500 5 4
Michael Martin USA 141,500 5 5
Vincent Secher France 92,500 5 6
Anders Berg Norway 124,000 5 7

Double-up

Mostafa Belkhayate opens the pot with a raise to 33,000 before Joe Hachem moves all-in from the button. He lost an early pot so his stacked has dipped below it's starting point. Nevertheless it's still a big raise for the Moroccan to call and he's up out of his seat as he ponders his decision. He calls and Joe flips over...

QQ

Mostaafa stands there very still and doesn't reveal his hand until requested to. We see why he didn't want to as he tables...

JJ

The board runs nine high and a very relieved Joe Hachem takes his head out his hands and looks at the board for the first time to confirm to himself that he has indeed doubled-up. He's a force again now in this tournament.

Toe-to toe

We have an all-in pre flop encounter. The two involved are the short-stacked Stefan Geim and Gerasimos Deres who's sat in the seat to his right. Cards are on their backs...

Stefan..66

Gerasimos.. AJ

All the way to the river on this one...

947 K 2

Stefan's hand holds up to double him up, the second time this has happened with pocket sixes today.

A short while later the same two players tangled again. The hand starts with Robin Keston raising up from the cut-off before the now short-stacked Gerasimos re-raises all-in from the small blind. Robin looks like he's about to call but then Stefan moves all-in from the big-blind. Robin changes his mind and mucks whilst flashing an ace. Same situation as last time then...

Gerasimos..55

Stefan.. QQ

The board comes...

4T3 3 T

A nightmare for Gerasimos as firstly he doubles Stefan up to become short-stacked and then the same player eliminates him

Deeb deeb in trouble

On our TV table Thomas Boekhoff raises before a short-stacked Freddy Deeb moves all-in. Then we see Michael Martin do the same behind him which is enough to see Thomas move out of the way. Freddy shows...

AT

Michael flips over...

JJ

A jack falls on the flop to really hammer the nail in the coffin that is Freddy's tournament life. It's over by the turn and the diminutive Freddy departs after a very strong showing. He'll be hoping to carry on the form into next week's WPT Championship at the Bellagio, Las Vegas.

Oops

On the feature table a flop is dealt and looking like...

JTJ

Luca Pagano is first to act and check-raises Pablo Ubierna's bet. Pablo then re-raises this all-in before seeing a snap call from Luca with...

J9

Pablo's hand has been caught in the cookie jar has...

72

Nothing changes on the turn or river and we lose another player in funny/embarrassing circumstances.

Chips counts at the end of Level 19

Antonio Esfandiari 1,640,000
Robin Keston 900,000
Isaac Baron 815,000
Maxime Villemure 790,000
Denes Kalo 680,000
Oyvind Riisem 650,000
David Miria 645,000
Joe Hachem 633,000
Henrik Gwinner 600,000
Luca Pagano 554,000
Thomas Boekhoff 533,000
Glen Chorny 520,000
Stig Top-Rasmussen 460,000
Johnny Lodden 420,000
Noah Siegel 410,000
Claudio Pagano 370,000
Eric Liu 324,000
Vincent Secher 312,000
Amit Makhija 278,000
Mostafa Belkhayate 232,000
Valeriy Ilikyan 202,000
Michael Martin 195,000
Stefan Geim 180,000
Rami Boukai 150,000
Walid Bou Habib 145,000

Team Betfair

Wishing Sorel a very happy 23rd birthday for today. The silver lining on his elimination cloud is that he will be free to celebrate in style tonight.
Annette managed to cash in the 1000euro side event she was playing. Losing two coin flips in a row was enough to send her to the rail, or the queue for the sit and goes maybe!

Man down

We're down to 24 players which means a re-draw takes place, a form of poker tournament musical chairs. Shortly after this took place Johhny Lodden eliminated Mostafa Belkhayate. Johnny was holding pocket threes to Mostafa's ace-king. The flop brought a three to end the tournament for the Morrocan. Johnny back over the 500,000 mark now after losing some chips whilst being 'card dead' at the previous table.

And another

There's an early position raise before Robin Keston re-raises. The action doesn't stop there though as Noah Siegel re-raises all-in before the original raiser passes. Robin thinks then makes the call with...

QQ

and it's a classic Holdem coin-flip as Noah's holding...

AK

The dealer gives us...

668 7 4

The queens hold up, Noah's out and Robin Keston is now sitting on more than 1.2m in chips.

Biggest pot of the tournament so far

Antonio Esfandiari is on the TV table now and he's using his big stack to great effect by bullying the table and winning many pots whilst showing hardly any hands down. He's sitting at the same table as Stig Top Rasmussen who was sat with for most of yesterday. They clashed a lot of times and kept re-raising each other trying to be table captain. Stig opens up this particular pot with a raise before Antonio re-raised. Then to great surprise, Stig moved all-in for 700,000 total - a massive re-re-raise. Antonio made the call to create the biggest pot of the tournament so far. Eager eyes focus to see what see two have.

Antonio tables...QQ

Stig tabled.. AT!!

All the way on this one...

734 A J

Stig spiked a vital ace on the turn to become chip leader or thereabouts. How he could commit so many chips pre-flop with ace-ten is beyond my thinking. Antonio had set this situation up perfectly with his table awareness. He got the right player to snap mentally and play back at him with a marginal holding and was rewarded with an outdraw.

Chip counts at and of Level 20

Stig Top-Rasmussen 1,427,000
Robin Keston 1,390,000
Isaac Baron 1,112,000
Denes Kalo 1,040,000
Oyvind Riisem 993,000
Antonio Esfandiari 975,000
Maxime Villemure 671,000
David Miria 660,000
Glen Chorny 635,000
Joe Hachem 554,000
Luca Pagano 553,000
Michael Martin 512,000
Thomas Boekhoff 448,000
Johnny Lodden 390,000
Amit Makhija 340,000
Henrik Gwinner 340,000
Vincent Secher 290,000
Eric Liu 255,000
Walid Bou Habib 177,000
Valeriy Ilikyan 154,000

Down Lodden

Johnny Lodden has a real habit of amassing vast amount of chips early on in EPTs but he's never managed to translate that into a final table appearance. Nothing much has really gone for him today. He seems to have been card dead and anytime he's tried to get anything going he's been re-raised of a pot or can't hit a flop. He makes a raise to 26,000 before seeing Henrik Gwinner re-raise all-in for 131,000. Johnny makes the call with...

JJ

Henrik tables...

KQ

A queen on the flop was enough to see Henrik double-up and leave Johhny short-stacked.

A little while after Johnny moved in for the rest of his chips and found a caller in the next seat, who happened to be Henrik. Johnny held pocket eights to the ace-jack of Henrik. You may have already guessed by the way Johnny runs at this stage of tournaments, he lost the race and was eliminated. Hard luck Johnny.

Updated chip counts

Robin Keston 1,470,000
Isaac Baron 1,370,000
Stig Top-Rasmussen 1,304,000
Antonio Esfandiari 1,080,000
Glen Chorny 1,015,000
Oyvind Riisem 920,000
Joe Hachem 900,000
Denes Kalo 820,000
Luca Pagano 715,000
Maxime Villemure 702,000
Michael Martin 635,000
Henrik Gwinner 576,000
Thomas Boekhoff 320,000
Eric Liu 316,000
Vincent Secher 300,000
Valeriy Ilikyan 270,000

Pay outs so far today in Euros

15 Oyvind Roysem Norway 55,200
16 Eric Liu USA 55,200
17 Johnny Lodden Norway 46,300
18 David Miara France 46,300
19 Walid Bou Habib Lebanon 46,300
20 Amit Makhija USA 46,300
21 Stefan Geim Germany 46,300
22 Claudio Pagano Italy 46,300
23 Noah Siegel USA 46,300
24 Mostafa Belkhayate Morocco 46,300
25 Rami Boukai USA 42,100
26 Peter Traply Hungary 42,100
27 Raymond Rahme South Africa 42,100
28 Pablo Ubierna Spain 42,100
29 Andrew Luetchford UK 42,100
30 Freddy Deeb USA 42,100
31 Anthony Chatelain Sweden 42,100
32 Gerasimos Deres Sweden 42,100
33 David Kruger USA 38,000
34 Jonathan Dwek Canada 38,000
35 Alexander Morozov Russia 38,000
36 Benjamin Sprengers USA 38,000
37 Anders Berg Norway 38,000
38 Tomas Brolin Sweden 38,000
39 Andreas Fluri Switzerland 38,000

Not shy at committing chips

Michael Martin has managed to double through Stig Top Rasmussen. Stig tried a squeeze move with pocket sevens after a raise from Henrik Gwinner and a flat call by Michael Martin. Henrik moved out of the way but Michael was sitting there with pocket aces and smooth called the big re-raise. Somehow Stig got it all in on a flop containing two over cards and there was no surprise that Michael called and doubled-up.

So close to making history

History was so close to being made by Joe Hachem but it wasn't to be as he's just been eliminated in 11th place. A flop was already out and looking as follows...

T43

Young internet sensation, Isaac Baron, considered by many to be the best online tournament player in the world right now is involved heads-up with Joe Hachem. He set Joe all-in and after a short dwell Joe called holding...

T6

He's dominated though as Isaac's holding JT.

The turn and river change nothing and Joe leaves us after cementing his place at the top table of talent in world poker.

Final Words

The powers that be have decided to stop play for today with ten players left. This is probably due to play going on for over twelve hours without reaching our final table of eight. There's been some great play and some questionable play, luck and skill combined have brought us down to our ten for tomorrow. We've got established stars like Antonio Esfandiari and Luca Pagano still hanging in there alongside young internet hounds like Issac 'westmenlowAA' Baron. Play will commence from 1200GMT tomorrow. See below for how chips counts finished for tonight.

Chips Counts

Glen Chorny 2,365,000
Stig Top-Rasmussen 590,000
Antonio Esfandiari 735,000
Isaac Baron 2,365,000
Luca Pagano 705,000
Maxime Villemure 1,220,000
Michael Martin 1,529,000
Henrik Gwinner 466,000
Denes Kalo 957,000
Valeriy Ilikyan 650,000

This is Marc Convey signing off once more from Monte Carlo