After leading the chip count at the end of his first two days of play, Sebastian Homann continued his winning ways long enough to triumph at the World Poker Tour Marrakech. The German collects a cool €244k for the win, while runner-up Guillaume Cescut picks up almost €136k and Sebastian Compte takes home over €90k for placing third. The 222 players who anted up the €4,250 buy-in was down significantly from the 415 competitors who took part last year, when France’s Christophe Savary took home a €377k first prize.
In London, Leon Bui has taken top honors at the 2010 Grosvenor UK Poker Tour Grand Final, outlasting the other 206 players to earn just shy of £145k for his efforts. Nicholas Irving settled for second best and £98k, while third place and £63k went to Charles Chattha.
Meanwhile, strange reports of shenanigans during the European Poker Tour Barcelona first emerged late last week in a Facebook post from Carter Phillips, winner of the 2009 EPT Barcelona. Phillips used a status update to announce that he was ‘95% sure’ that he was ‘officially’ giving up poker. William Reynolds posted a response to Phillips’ update, writing that Phillips’ decision wasn’t card related, but ‘people got robbed tonight and almost injured.’ Reynolds later added that he was ‘thankful the 18in machete that was being swung at me last night didn’t kill me – the end.’
According to Reynolds, he, Phillips, Kevin Stani and Kayvan Payman were out drinking in Barcelona following the end of the day’s tournament play. Then, after spilling out onto the street in the early morning light, Payman was promptly relieved of $4k by some local pickpockets. The other players chased down the thieves, but when they tried to enlist the help of the staff from a local restaurant, the confused staff apparently thought the inebriated players were attempting to break into the restaurant, so the staff attacked the players with a frying pan and the aforementioned 18” machete.
Long story short, no one was seriously hurt, and Phillips is not actually giving up poker. But seriously guys, when you’re out drinking in a foreign land, know when to fold ’em, okay?
