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EPT Monte Carlo Report - part 1

Apr 3, 2007 The European Poker Tour Grand final ended on Monday in Monte-Carlo, with young American pro Gavin Griffin being crowned the winner in the early hours of the morning after a long heads-up battle with Canadian Marc Karam. After Jeff Williams' victory last year , this is the second time in a row that the most prestigious poker trophy in Europe goes to the other side of the Atlantic.

It had all started six days earlier when 706 players gathered at the Bay & Resort Hotel, each ponying up 10,000 euros to be part of the biggest tournament ever held outside the USA. All records have been broken in luxurious Monte-Carlo during this week: attendance, prize-pool (a whooping 6,636,400 euros), first-place reward (1,825,000 euros) and price for a single hamburger at the bar (20 euros).

No serious poker player wanted to miss this event. All the big European names you could expect were here, and several American top pros got the word and made their appearance. Phil Ivey, Josh Arieh, Barry Greenstein, world champions Phil Hellmuth and Greg Raymer were there, to name only but a few. Even the two biggest European high-rollers, Patrik Antonius and David Benyamine, now settled down in Las Vegas, returned briefly from their daily Bellagio big game to grace us with their now rare presence on this side of the Atlantic.

When Day One ended, at around 4am., after seven levels of 90 minutes had been played over the course of two days, more than half of the players were gone. (As it has became customary in big buy-in tournaments, the field of players had been split in half, each half playing in one of the two starting days, two "Day One"' if you will) On top of the field was the Americain Chad Brown with 150,000 in chips. Representing TeamPokerRoom, Ricki 'riverricki' Nielsen was still in contention with 22,000 in chips. Everyone had started with 15,000 in chips, and Ricki's stack was below the average. Thanks to the excellent structure, it was nothing to be worried about: the blinds would start at only 300/600 on the next day.

On Day Two, the remaining players showing up in the spectacular ball-room La Salle des Etoiles had a willingness to gamble and play big pots, resulting in a fast-paced rhythm of eliminations. From 385 players, the field shrank to 85 after only six levels were played. A lot of the well known figures who entered the tournament were long gone, and popular Irishman Andy Black was the chip-leader. RiverRicki was one of the lucky few who made it to the next day, holding a stack of 140,000 chips, good for 32nd place. About his journey so far, the Danish player said that night: “This is the best tournament I played this season. The structure is great and allows a lot of play. It reminds me of the WSOP Main Event structure, where everything went so well for me.' Ricki had started the tournament facing tough players, only to be quickly moved at a new table with even tougher players such as Noah Boeken and Johnny Lodden. During Day 2, Ricki increased his stack steadily, with the help of some good cards and good reads.

Day Three was bubble day: out of the 85 remaining players, only 64 would get paid. Unfortunately, Ricki wouldn't be one of them, as he exited the tournament only moments before the paid spots were reached. After the bubble burst, several players who've been hanging on a short stack departed quickly with a 13,000 euros paycheck. Among them, Rkruok, who had previously cashed in big buy-in tournaments, twice wearing TeamPokerRoom colors. Norwegian Johnny Lodden literally exploded moments after. The high-stakes online player had shown in previous EPT events that he was able to build gigantic stacks of chips early in the tournament, only to loose them in no time during the final stages. In Monte-Carlo, this is exactly what he did – again. The 32 player mark, which would result in the end of Day 3, was quickly reached at 10 pm. Andy Black was still the chip-leader, with British Dean Sanders and Frenchman Anthony Lellouche trailing behind him.

Day Four would see decided a final table of eight players, among the remaining field of 32. Josh Arieh, in charge for most of the tournament, was one of the first to go. The American pro had been virtually nowhere to be seen since the last WSOP, taking some time off the tournament trail with his family, including a new-born baby. Around midnight, after the departure of Eric Van Der Berg in 9th, the final table was set.

The eight remaining players who shown up for the last day of play were:

Gavin Griffin (USA) – 2,597,000 in chips
Marc Karam (Canada) - 1,742,000
Soren Kongsgaard (Denmark) - 1,612,000
Josh Prager (USA) - 1,593,000
Kristian Kjondal (Norway) - 1,203,000
Steve Jelinek (UK) - 758,000
Andy Black (Ireland) - 683,000
Ram Vaswani (UK) - 432,000

[Continues in part 2]

[Benjamin Gallen for PokerRoom.com]

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