€25,500 High Roller Dia 2 | 2015 PokerStars and Monte-Carlo® Casino EPT Grand Final

2015-05-07 11:31 UTC+2

Welcome to Day 2 of EPT 11 Grand Final €25,500 High Roller

mnuwwarah

Ten levels are in the books at European Poker Tour 11 Grand Final €25,500 High Roller, and as you might expect, plenty of big names are sitting at the top of the leaderboard as things roll into Day 2, set to begin at 12:30 local time here in Monte Carlo today.

Steve O'Dwyer (330,200), Tony Gregg (325,800), Max Altergott (311,100), and Matt Waxman (298,500) are the headliners leading the 94 who bagged at the end of Day 1. Team PokerStars pros Daniel Negreanu (182,000), Isaac Haxton (181,700), Scott Seiver (177,700), Sorel Mizzi (154,500), €100,000 Super High Roller winner Erik Seidel (149,100), and Mike "Timex" McDonald (118,800) are also making their presences known and have amassed solid stacks.

Even more high-rolling stars of the game could still show up, as registration is open until 12:15, just before the restart. Players who enter at the last minute will have 50,000 chips to work with as blinds kick off at Level 11 (1,000/2,000/300). Certainly, it's not a ton, but a workable stack nonetheless with 25 big blinds. Today's agenda is identical to Day 1, with 10 one-hour levels on tap. The only change is the possibility of an early stop should the tournament be whittled down to 8 players, at which point play would stop and everyone would come back for the official final table tomorrow.

2015-05-07 12:46 UTC+2

The €25K Existential Crisis of Patrick Leonard

[user153638]

Nível 11 : 1,000/2,000, 300 ante

Patrick Leonard, who busted once and reentered yesterday, begins Day 2 with 45,300. It's a number he's not too happy with; in fact, the last hand of Day 1 seems to have thrown Leonard into a bit of an existential crisis.

Late last night, after play had concluded, Leonard bared his poker soul in the popular TwoPlusTwo forum:

"I'm going to say this and I know its not going to sound good to investors, but I really dont feel like I should be playing 25k tournaments.

"I just took a bad beat which 99.9% of the time I take perfectly fine but here it hit me really badly. It was the last hand of the day, I've been happy all day, even when times were going really bad I was very optimistic and played as close to A game as possible, but when this river card happened, I can't really explain it but it hurt me mentally way more than it should have done.

"Walking back to my hotel I felt genuinely very, very sad and thats a pretty bad thing. Bad beats are part of everything, I should just accept it and move on to the next hand, but this time it just made me genuinely sad/upset and thats a terrible mindset to have."

There's a lot more to the post — which you can view in full here — but it's clear yesterday took it's toll on Leonard. The silver lining is that today is a new day, and in poker, truly anything can happen.

We'll keep an eye on Leonard throughout Day 2 to see if his luck changes.

Tags: Patrick Leonard

2015-05-07 12:58 UTC+2

Andress Eliminates Colman

mnuwwarah

Nível 11 : 1,000/2,000, 300 ante

Daniel Colman, one of the premier tournament players in the world, just got his walking papers courtesy of John Andress, who opened from the cutoff to 4,500. Colman defended his big blind, and the flop came . Colman checked, and Andress bet 5,200. Colman responded with an all-in shove, and Andress quickly called.

Andress:
Colman:

Colman's equity was slim, and the turn and didn't save him.

Jogador	Fichas	Progresso
John Andress	135,500 46,300	46,300
Daniel Colman	Eliminado

Tags: Daniel Colman John Andress

2015-05-07 13:53 UTC+2

Seidel Eliminated on Bad Beat in Three-Way All In; Soika Grabs Lead

mnuwwarah

Nível 12 : 1,200/2,400, 300 ante

Three players had 17,200 in front of them when we got to a table where Leo Yan Ho Cheng was all in from the button for 56,000 more. Ihar Soika shoved from the big blind, covering everyone in the hand. Erik Seidel, who was under the gun, thought only briefly before calling off his 130,000 or so. Davidi Kitai took a deep breath and looked at the clock, thinking hard about putting in his stack of about 80,000 more.

"Sorry," he said with a smile, clearly struggling with the massive odds he was getting. Finally, he raised his cards to muck them.

"Jacks," he said pointing at Soika.

"Ace-king," he said to Seidel. He predicted Cheng's hand as well but we couldn't hear it.

Kitai's read was a bit off though, as Soika had only , while Seidel was the one leading with . Cheng had . The ugliest card in the deck from Seidel's perspective appeared in the window: . The turn improved Soika to a boat and eliminated Cheng from contention, and the was a blank on the river to send the Super High Roller champion packing as well.

Soika is now the chip leader.

Jogador	Fichas	Progresso
Ihar Soika	400,000 296,700	296,700
Davidi Kitai	80,300 -65,700	-65,700

Erik Seidel	Eliminado

Leo Yan Ho Cheng	Eliminado

Tags: Davidi Kitai Erik Seidel Ihar Soika Leo Yan Ho Cheng

2015-05-07 15:53 UTC+2

Pocket Nines Continue To Be Mercier's Kryptonite

[user68268]

Nível 13 : 1,500/3,000, 400 ante

Jason Mercier and pocket nines don't exactly see eye to eye, especially recently.

Yesterday in the €10,600 Main Event here at the 2015 PokerStars and Monte-Carlo® Casino EPT Grand Final, Mercier was deep in the remaining field with 28 players left. It was then that Mercier raised from under the gun before action folded to Ludovic Geilich in the big blind. Geilich reraised all in, and Mercier quickly called off for just under 26 big blinds total.

Mercier had pocket nines — the — and was well out in front of the for Geilich. Unfortunately for the Team PokerStars Pro, the board ran out , and Geilich turned a set before finishing with a full house. With that, Mercier fell short in his quest for the final table and earned €29,900.

"I just felt like a five was coming," Mercier said to one of our reporter's in passing a day later. "It was just one of those feelings you have."

Today, things didn't get much better for Mercier. He was involved in Day 2 of this €25,500 High Roller and found himself returning from the last break to look down at the same hand — the .

This time, Stephen Chidwick opened the pot with a raise to 6,500 from middle position. Mercier was next in the hijack seat and reraised all in for 60,900. The action slid over to Pablo Melogno Cabrera on the button. He got counts on both Mercier and Chidwick, thought for a few moments, then reraised all in. Everyone, including Chidwick, folded, and it was Mercier with his nines against the for Cabrera.

The flop came down and delivered trip queens to Cabrera. The turn was the , and the river was the . This meant Mercier was gone from the event, as his pocket nines once again failed to hold up.

If you think this is bad, wait until you here about another instance in which Mercier had pocket nines and it cost him a whole heck of a lot of money.

Back at the 2013 World Series of Poker, Mercier was playing Day 3 of the 1,072-entry $3,000 No-Limit Hold'em event. The winner was set to get $592,684, and Mercier was in line for his third bracelet and a big payday, but he stood to win even more than that as 2013 was the year he made a large amount of WSOP bracelet bets.

With 16 players left, Mercier played a pot with Michael Rocco where about 20% of the chips in the entire event were in the middle. The money went in on the board with one card to come, and Mercier had Rocco dead to rights with the . Rocco had the and was in need of a two-outer.

But then, everything changed when the smacked down on the river and gave Rocco a winning full house. It sent Mercier to the rail in 16th place, and he was left with a consolation prize of $21,773.

Of course, it's hard to quantify just how much equity these hands have been worth to Mercier because tournament poker can be a brutal game, but given his record over the years and the fact that he is widely considered one of the game's strongest minds, certainly hundreds of thousands of dollars have been lost had these hands held up.

It goes without saying that pocket nines haven't been that kind to Mercier.

Jogador	Fichas	Progresso
Pablo Melogno	375,000 100,400	100,400
Stephen Chidwick	105,000 -2,800	-2,800
Jason Mercier	Eliminado

Tags: Jason Mercier Ludovic Geilich Pablo Melogno Cabrera Stephen Chidwick

2015-05-07 17:00 UTC+2

Andreev Continues to Roll; First Over a Million

[user153638]

Nível 14 : 2,000/4,000, 500 ante

With around 25,000 in the pot and a board reading , chip leader Andrey Andreev bet 30,000 from the small blind and Connor Drinan called from the button. When the completed the board on the river, Andreev slid out a stack of blue T5,000 chips for a bet of 100,000.

Drinan eyed him up, but all Andreev did was laugh.

"You bluffing?" Drinan asked. Andreev laughed some more and shrugged.

Drinan hit the tanks for several minutes before making the call, but mucked just as soon as Andreev showed the nuts with the .

Jogador	Fichas	Progresso
Andrey Andreev	1,120,000 300,000	300,000
Connor Drinan	65,000 -125,000	-125,000

Tags: Andrey Andreev Connor Drinan

2015-05-07 18:26 UTC+2

The High-Roller Events That Continue To Impress

[user68268]

Nível 16 : 3,000/6,000, 1,000 ante

This year's 2015 PokerStars and Monte-Carlo® Casino European Poker Tour Grand Final €25,500 High Roller attracted 215 total entries, with 162 of those being unique entries, and then 53 reentries. That's quite the plump field for an event priced at €25,500 per entry, and it generated a prize pool of €5,267,500.

Just how big is this event, though?

In term of total entries in the field, in order to be ranked in the top 10 largest events with a buy-in of $25,000 or €25,000, one would have to have a field of 214 or more. Last year's EPT Grand Final High Roller attracted 214 total entries and was the event of this buy-in with the 10th-largest field size in history.

Now that this year's field topped last year's by one, it's the new standard to break into the top 10, as seen in the table below.

Rank	Event	Entries	Winner	Prize Pool	First-Place Prize
1	2007 WPT World Championship	639	Carlos Mortensen	$15,495,750	$3,970,415
2	2006 WPT World Championship	605	Joe Bartholdi	$14,671,250	$3,760,165
3	2008 WPT World Championship	545	David Chiu	$13,216,250	$3,389,140
4	2005 WPT World Championship	453	Tuan Le	$10,961,000	$2,856,150
5	2004 WPT World Championship	343	Martin De Knijff	$8,342,000	$2,728,356
6	2009 WPT World Championship	338	Yevgeniy Timoshenko	$8,172,250	$2,143,655
7	2015 PCA High Roller	269	Ilkin Garibli	$6,456,000	$1,294,460
8	2014 PCA High Roller	247	Jake Schindler	$6,051,500	$1,279,880
9	2011 WPT World Championship	220	Scott Seiver	$5,309,500	$1,618,344
10	2015 EPT Grand Final High Roller	215	--TBD--	€5,267,500	€1,114,000

With the Euro being valued higher than the U.S. Dollar, the prize pool for the €25,500 High Roller at the EPT Grand Final is usually always a bit higher than the $25,500 High Roller held at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure each January. But, the event in January tends to get a larger field.

As previously written in Four Exciting Things To Watch For at the European Poker Tour Grand Final in Monaco, "The EPT Grand Final €25,500 High Roller and the PCA $25,500 High Roller are very similar in field-size history. This year will be the seventh installment of the EPT Grand Final €25,500 High Roller, and the PCA $25,500 High Roller had its seventh installment earlier this year in January. Minus one down year for each event, the fields sizes have gotten larger each edition."

Adding in the field from this year's EPT Grand Final High Roller, the following table looks at the two events side by side.

Year	PCA $25K Entries	% Change	EPT GF €25K Entries	% Change
2009	48	--	79	--
2010	84	+75%	113	+43%
2011	151	+79.8%	58	-48.7%
2012	148	-2%	133	+129.3%
2013	204	+37.8%	158	+18.8%
2014	247	+21.1%	214	+35.4%
2015	269	+8.9%	215	+0.47%
	Average	+36.8%		+29.7%

The one decline in the EPT Grand Final High Roller field was mainly due to the event being held in a different location. In 2011, the event was held in Madrid, and the turnout suffered because of it. Other years, it has been held in Monte Carlo. The PCA High Roller and the EPT Grand Final High Roller when held in Monte Carlo have seen increases in the field size each year. That's an extremely positive trend for events of this buy-in size, and we wanted to find out a little more as to why they're always so successful.

"I think super high roller events continue to grow for two reasons," stated Chad Holloway, managing editor at PokerNews. "First, both high-stakes players and wealthy amateurs don't want to grind weeklong tournaments, which is the length of many of today's premiere main events. They'd rather play for three days or less for a chance at a seven-figure score. Second, super high roller events are the new standard in prestige. It's there that you're guaranteed the highest level of play against the best players in the world. That's appealing."

As a regular member of the media at these tournaments, Holloway makes some very good points. Another regular at these stops is EPT tournament supervisor Luca Vivaldi. Like Holloway, we also talked to Vivaldi about the success of these events to see what he thought.

"I think the players kind of know that it's going to be a big number in these events, so they tend to come and play these tournaments," Vivaldi said. "Maybe they save some buy-ins from other tournaments because they know how big these fields are going to be. That's the most simple reason that I can give you. Everybody seems to like the structure as a three-day event and it attracts a lot of players."

After speaking to a member of the media and a tournament official, we also wanted to get the view from a player's perspective. For that, we caught up with Matt Waxman, who happens to be building quite a contending stack in this event.

"With these events in particular, it's because of PokerStars," Waxman said. "When they have their own tour, they're able to facilitate all of the high-stakes players very well so that they can just use their online accounts to come to these events and buy in. That's very convenient. Not to mention the destinations are nice, too. You get to go to the Bahamas, which is pretty nice for vacation, and Monaco is very nice as well."

Big fields, large payouts, player-friendly structures, elite competition, and impressive locations all seem to play a hand in making these events as successful as they are. In a poker world where tournament field size numbers can jump around like an electrocardiogram, it's refreshing to see a healthy, positive trend in the realm of these high-stakes events.

Tags: Bahamas Chad Holloway EPT EPT Grand Final Luca Vivaldi Matt Waxman Monaco Monte Carlo PCA PokerStars Caribbean Adventure

2015-05-07 18:31 UTC+2

Jacobson Eliminates Negreanu

mnuwwarah

Nível 16 : 3,000/6,000, 1,000 ante

Martin Jacobson's momentum continues to build.

The defending Main Event champ called a bet of about 25,000 on a flop from Daniel Negreanu. Bryn Kenney folded from the button, and Christoph Vogelsang, who had checked in the big blind, followed suit. Negreanu piled in his stack of 134,500 on the turn, and Jacobson thought briefly and called with . Negreanu was crushed: .

"That was the one hand I was trying to get you off," Negreanu said with a laugh.

The river didn't save Negreanu, and the Team PokerStars pro bowed out while the world champ has heaps now.

Jogador	Fichas	Progresso
Martin Jacobson	542,500 399,300	399,300
Daniel Negreanu	Eliminado

Tags: Bryn Kenney Christoph Vogelsang Daniel Negreanu Martin Jacobson

2015-05-07 22:00 UTC+2

Franczak Follows Up €100K SHR Bubble by Bubbling the €25K

[user153638]

Nível 17 : 4,000/8,000, 1,000 ante

Piotr Franczak bubbles PokerStars and Monte-Carlo® Casino EPT Grand Final 2015 €25,000 High Roller

Earlier in the week, Poland's Piotr Franczak suffered a particularly bad beat to bubble the €100,000 Super High Roller. Unfortunately for him, he had to experience the bubble pain yet against here at the EPT11 Grand Final, this time in the €25,000 High Roller.

This time however, it wasn't a bad beat. Instead, Franczak had grown extremely short, down to just 4,000 in fact, when he committed it under the gun. Dario Sammartino, who was next to act, called the 8,000 big blind, and then Matt Waxman did the same from the cutoff. A short-stacked Tom-Aksel Bedell called the additional 4,000 from the small blind — leaving himself just 8,000 back — and Dominik Nitsche checked his option from the big.

Two checks on the flop saw Sammartino bet 10,000, Waxman folded, and Bedell called off. Nitsche got out of the way, and the remaining three players tabled their cards.

Sammartino:
Bedell:
Franczak:

Sammartino had the best of it with middle pair and a big kicker, and the hand held after the appeared on the turn followed by the river. Had the double elimination taken place between two players at different tables, the 31st-place prize money (€46,400) would have been split; however, the rules state when two eliminations occur at the same table, the player with the lower chip count technically busts first.

That meant Franczak left empty handed in 32nd place, while Bedell got the min-cash.

Jogador	Fichas	Progresso
Tom-Aksel Bedell	Eliminado
Piotr Franczak	Eliminado

Tags: Dario Sammartino Piotr Franczak Tom-Aksel Bedell

2015-05-07 23:48 UTC+2

Seiver Exits 20th Place; Completes EPT11 Grand Final Hat Trick

[user153638]

Nível 20 : 8,000/16,000, 2,000 ante

Scott Seiver, who finished runner-up in the event last year, has made history here in Monaco by completing a high roller hat trick, cashing in the €100,000 Super High Roller (8th - €261,800), €50,000 Super High Roller (9th - €92,860), and €25,000 High Roller (20th - €62,100).

While other players like Vanessa Selbst and Ole Schemion have completed a Super High Roller/High Roller/Main Event hat trick at other EPT stops, the EPT11 Grand Final was the first time there's ever been three high rollers of this caliber.

Seiver, who also won Event #43 €5,300 Pot-Limit Omaha for €75,900 here in Monte Carlo, fell when he shoved his last 124,000 from the cutoff and Andrey Andreev called from the button.

Seiver:
Andreev:

The flop gave Andreev a set, but Seiver was drawing live to an eight. The gave Seiver some chop options to a flush, but it was not meant to be as the blanked on the river.

Jogador	Fichas	Progresso
Scott Seiver	Eliminado

Tags: Andrey Andreev Scott Seiver