With just 34 players remaining in the 2015 PokerStars and Monte-Carlo® Casino EPT Grand Final Main Event, all already guaranteed €26,500 at this point, today shouldn't be too long a day. The plan is to either play down to 16 players, or five full 90-minute levels.
Jose Carlos Garcia from Poland is leading with 1,710,000 in chips. That's 170 big blinds at the moment, as the first level will be 5,000/10,000 with a 1,000 ante. Second in chips is high roller Connor "blanconegro" Drinan with just over a million in chips. Fabrice Soulier, third on France's all time money list, is the short stack coming in with just 73,000.
PokerStars Team Pro is still well represented with Johnny Lodden (728,000), Andre Akkari (574,000) and Jason Mercier (539,000) still in contention. PokerStars Team Online pro Isaac Haxton is second shortest with just 112,000 in chips. We imagine Table 2 being picked as the feature table today, as that features both Lodden and Mercier, as well as Geilich (346,000), Kanit (213,000) and Chidwick (393,000).
Play starts at noon (in about half an hour), so sit back and enjoy another day of EPT Grand Final Main Event coverage, right here on PokerNews.com!
Mustapha Kanit raised to 25,000 from the hijack after starting the hand with around 20 big blinds. Geilich called from the big blind and both players saw a flop of .
Geilich check-called Kanit's bet of 16,000 and saw the on the turn, and Geilich decided to bet out 51,000. With just over 200,000 behind, Kanit shoved and Geilich snap-called.
Kanit:
Geilich:
Kanit was drawing to a chop, but the on the river sealed his fate, and the winner of the One-Day €50k earlier on in the festival was eliminated in 26th place.
Players have been slowing down aware of a pay jump between 22 and 21 players, but Christopher Frank was all-in and at risk of busting with against Romain Paon's .
The flop was which was no use to Frank. The turn was the and Frank stood up and put his tablet into his bag.
The river card was the and Frank froze looking at the board. He slowly sat back down and counted out the double-up for the dealer.
On the 13th episode of the Remko Report, host Remko Rinkema speaks with Igor Kurganov, Liv Boeree, Adriano Mannino, and Ruairí Donnelly about the charity Raising for Effective Giving, otherwise known as REG.
Joao Simao was all-in and behind preflop against Anton Astapau. We didn't catch the action pre-flop but Simao was seated in the hijack whilst Astapau was in the small blind.
Astapau:
Simao:
The flop was , and although the on the turn gave Simao help, the on the river was no use to him as he exited in 21st place (€45,700).
Scott Clements has been eliminated from the tournament. He first lost with a big pot against Markus Ross. Clements opened with the kings, found two callers, and got check-raised all in on a flop of . Clements made the call with his over pair en flush draw, but was behind against Ross' . The on the turn and on the river were blanks and Ross doubled, Clements had 296,000 left.
Those chips he lost not much later to Johnny Lodden. On a flop of Clements found himself all in with . Clements had the upper hand as Lodden showed . The on the turn gave Lodden some more outs, and one of them hit the river: .
Donnie Peters and Remko Rinkema talk all things EPT Grand Final. Topics include Erik Seidel's big win in the €100,000 Super High Roller, Dzmitry Urbanovich's insane run, and Scott Seiver's excellence.
Day 4 of the 2015 PokerStars and Monte-Carlo® Casino European Poker Tour Grand Final €10,600 Main Event started out with just 34 players and the goal of reaching the final 16. In the end, though, only 15 players survived the day as two exits happened right at the same moment, on two different tables, to finish off play.
With a lot of familiar faces still in contention, along with a group of likable newcomers, Day 4 was as exciting as they come.
The first remarkable feature was Chinese high roller Quan Zhou litteraly flipping a coin to make up his mind. He called, and lost the coin flip with sixes to Pierre Neuville's ace-king. Zhou had some chips left, but hit the rail not much later when he ran fours into Tom Hall's aces.
Another thing that got the blood pumping was a double knockout on the same table. Juan Martin Pastor got it in with kings against the tens of Neuville and ace-queen of World Series of Poker runner-up Felix Stephensen on a flop. Running jacks made for an original way to send two players packing.
Team PokerStars Pro was well represented at the start of the day, but all but Johnny Lodden would fall in the 3.5 levels played. Isaac Haxton started out short and didn't make a miraculous comeback, soon joining the €25,500 High Roller that began today.
Another Team Pro was Jason Mercier. He suffered several beats, with nines against fives preflop as the grand finale. A five on the turn for Ludovic Geilich made for an exit for Mercier in 28th place worth €29,900.
Andre Akkari had the entire country of Brazil on his rail, but it didn't help him secure a spot on Day 5. He lost a coin flip to bust in 23rd place (€40,050) against his neighbor, Pastor.
The only Team Pro to survive the day was Lodden. He final tabled the EPT Grand Final Main Event here two years ago (3rd - €467,000) and didn't just survive the day. In fact, he'll start Day 5 as the chip leader. Lodden won the biggest pot against Ole Schemion.
The young German superstar opened under the gun and fired three bullets on the board. Lodden called from the big blind preflop, then check-called all three streets with a mere . The pair of fours was good, though, as Schemion showed the with a smile.
Schemion lost a lot of chips in that hand, but he will be one of the contestants on the penultimate day. He regained control of the table, took down several small pots, raised some turns, and didn't show down too many hands. In the end, he bagged a contending stack.
In the fourth of a planned five levels, three well-known pros hit the rail.
Scott Clements lost a big chunk with kings and a flush draw against a flopped flush, then lost the rest to Lodden, again getting flushed with a strong hand. Italian high roller Dario Sammartino was short and moved all in with . He got looked up by and couldn't hit. At the same time, Connor Drinan lost all of his chips. Drinan first made a very nice hero call with on a scary board to double, but lost his chips not much later as he wasn't able to fade an ace with queens all in preflop against Anton Astapau's ace-king.
With the simultaneous knockouts, the tournament was down to just 15 players and the bagging and tagging started. Those 15 will return tomorrow for Day 6 of the EPT Grand Final at 12 p.m. local time sharp. The plan will be to play five levels or down to six players, whichever comes first. The players are guaranteed €58,100 at this point, but all are shooting for that €1,082,000 first-place prize.
Can Johnny Lodden final table again and work his way to getting the monkey off his back? Can Ole Schemion best his highest EPT Main Event finishing position (5th for €218,300 at EPT Prague in2013)? Or will someone else emerge as the latest champion?
Be sure to check back at PokerNews to find out!
Table
Seat
Name
Country
Chips
1
1
Koichi Nozaki
Japan
1,582,000
1
2
Lyndon Basha
United Kingdom
1,070,000
1
3
Jose Carlos Garcia
Poland
523,000
1
4
Muhyedine Fares
Senegal
1,280,000
1
6
Johnny Lodden
Norway
2,293,000
1
7
Ole Schemion
Germany
1,178,000
1
8
Romain Paon
France
782,000
2
1
Adrian Mateos
Spain
1,635,000
2
2
Hady El Asmar
Lebanon
1,530,000
2
3
Anton Astapau
Belarus
896,000
2
4
Christopher Frank
Germany
645,000
2
5
Tom Hall
United Kingdom
249,000
2
6
Dmitry Ivanov
Russia
994,000
2
7
Juan Martin Pastor
Argentina
450,000
2
8
Markus Ross
Germany
1,815,000
Team PokerStars Pro Johnny Lodden is chip leader heading into Day 5 of the EPT 11 Grand Final, on what is his fifth cash in this event in seven years. Two years ago Lodden finished third, and right now he's in pole position to capture his first ever EPT title. Remko Rinkema spoke to him after the day had ended.