The European Poker Tour (EPT) Grand Final in Monte Carlo has reached the penultimate day of action and Andrew Pantling leads a field that boasts some of the best players in the world.
It’s no exaggeration when I say that the line-up for the penultimate day of the EPT Grand Final Main Event in Monte Carlo is one of the best you will likely see in a poker tournament. The CEO of Matchbook, Andrew Pantling, may have a big chip lead, but the players staring up at him in envy all have the ability to win this thing with their eyes closed. John Juanda, Daniel Negreanu, Freddy Deeb, Victor Ramdin, Noah Schwartz, Jason Mercier and Jake Cody have all won the biggest live tournament majors in existence, and when you add the likes of Steve O’Dwyer, Andrew Lichtenberger, Grant Levy and Johnny Lodden into that mix it makes you salivate like a Pavlov dog.
The fourth day was action packed and once again it was the stars of world poker in the heat of it. Two-time WSOP winner Oleksii Kovalchuk ran ace-king into the ace-queen of Freddy Deeb only for the good lady to make an appearance on the flop to the send the Ukranian out in 28th place, Noah Boeken was ousted in 26th place by the Belgian powerhouse Kevin Vandersmissen who was then eliminated in a huge three way pot involving the PokerStars tag team of Lodden and Ramdin. The tournament floor was a lot quieter after the current Global Poker Index (GPI) Player of the Year leader, Paul Volpe, eliminated Luke Schwartz before Volpe himself headed to the exit in 20th place courtesy of Cylde Tjauw Foe.
When the fifth day of action starts in earnest, the marketing bods at PokerStars will be grinning like a Cheshire cat, with representation from five of their strongest members of their Team Pro brand still vying for the first place prize of €1,224,000.
The action starts at midday and eyes won’t be fixed on just the main event. The €25,000 High Roller event has been whittled down to 70-runners from a starting field of 158 and, as you would expect, Igor Kurganov is leading the field. The reigning €25,000 champion is one of 10 top Germans remaining that include his good friends Philipp Gruissem and Fabian Quoss.
