The €25,000 High Roller Event #61 is shaping up to provide an exciting finish to the EPT season Friday to go alongside the end of the concurrently-running Main Event. We’ve seen the best players in poker in nearly every event throughout the PokerStars and Monte-Carlo®Casino EPT Grand Final festival, and it seems nearly all of them wanted to be here for this last big one before saying goodbye to Season 11.
Speaking of exciting finishes, the last level of the €25K provided plenty of excitement just prior to the final bagging, with EPT9 Grand Final Main Event champion Steve O’Dwyer winning a big one near the end to nudge ahead of a remaining field full of top talent and snare the overnight chip lead.
Just a few big blinds back of O’Dwyer is Tony Gregg (325,800), with Max Altergott (311,100), Pablo Melogno (290,000), and Matt Waxman (248,500) forming a formidable chase pack.
Team PokerStars Pro Daniel Negreanu arrived late, scored an immediate double-up, then accumulated steadily thereafter to end well with 182,000.
A total of 89 made it through to tomorrow’s Day 2, with Mayu Roca, Scott Seiver, Dani Stern, Andrew Chen, and Sorel Mizzi, Martin Finger, and Erik Seidel among the many big names with big stacks.
The €1,000 NL Single Re-Entry — Event #54 — at last wrapped up after Luciana Manolea busted in third, a two-way deal was struck, then Jonas Lauck outlasted Mikal Blomlie to take the title.
Event #54, €1,000 NL Hold’em – Single Re-Entry
Entries: 198
Prize pool: €192,060
Places paid: 27
1. Jonas Lauck (Germany) — €37,312*
2. Mikal Blomlie (Norway) — €33,958*
3. Luciana Manolea (Romania) — €19,770
4. Raffaele Sorrentino (Italy) — €16,110
5. Joao Brito (Portugal) — €12,850
6. Atanas Kavrakov (Bulgaria) — €9,880
7. Diogo Cardoso (Portugal) — €7,180
8. Mikhail Nikolaev (Latvia) — €5,210
9. Marc Bebawi (USA) — €4,300
*denotes two-way deal
And in the tournament room’s other corner it was the British player George Rankin managing to come away with the Event #62 €500 Pot-Limit H.O.R.S.E. title, worth €3,870. That makes a second title this series for Rankin who also just won Event #53, the €500 H.O.R.S.E. of the fixed-limit variety.
Entries: 19
Prize pool: €9,215
Places paid: 4
1. George Rankin (UK) — €3,870
2. Giuseppe Zarbo (Italy) — €2,580
3. Adam Owen (UK) — €1,660
4. Pierre-Olivier Jandaud (France) — €1,105
Other events are still playing out, with some close to finishing and others still a ways away, including the last one of the night, a €500+€500+€100 NL Midnight Turbo Bounty “Win the Button” tournament (Event #66). We’ll be back tomorrow to recap all of those before starting what will be the busiest day yet of the festival with no less than twelve events in action.
That’s a lot to follow. Let’s all get go some rest and start it up again here around midday tomorrow, shall we?
Click here for a continually updated list of all side event results from the EPT11 Grand Final.
Follow all the action from the €10,000 Main Event is on the Main Event page. Also watch on EPT Live. It’s also about time you downloaded the EPT app. There you will get all the latest news, chip counts and payouts. You can download it on Android or IOS.
Martin Harris is Freelance Contributor to the PokerStars Blog.
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