2015 European Poker Tour Deauville: By the Numbers

January 19, 2015

Donnie Peters

Starting Jan. 28 and running through Feb. 7, 2015, the European Poker Tour will take to Deauville in Normandy for the fifth stop of the season. Highlighting the festival will be the €5,300 Main Event running Feb. 1-7 and the €10,300 High Roller running Feb. 5-7.

Deauville has played host to an EPT festival dating back to Season 5 in 2009. It's been a staple on the schedule each seasons since, and the Main Event has always donned a €5,300 buy-in. It's been a successful stop on the tour, generating an average of 774 entries in the Main Event and an average of 65 entries in the High Roller in six seasons.

From the first year to the third, the EPT Deauville Main Event saw a rise in entrants, but it has declined every year since, coming in at 671 entries last season. The EPT Deauville High Roller, though, has seen an increase in field size each year it has been held, and that includes the first two years when it had a €20,300 buy-in. In 2011 during its third season in existence, the High Roller buy-in was dropped to €10,300.

Past EPT Deauville Main Event and High Roller Winners

Year	Event	Entries	Prize Pool	Winner	First Prize
2009	€5,300 Main Event	645	€3,096,000	Moritz Kranich	€851,400
	€20,300 High Roller	20	€384,000	Juha Helppi	€192,000

2010	€5,300 Main Event	768	€3,686,400	Jake Cody	€847,000
	€20,300 High Roller	26	€520,000	Martin Kabrhel	€250,000

2011	€5,300 Main Event	891	€4,276,800	Lucien Cohen	€880,000
	€10,300 High Roller	58	€556,800	Jonathan Duhamel	€200,000

2012	€5,300 Main Event	889	€4,267,200	Vadzim Kursevich	€889,000
	€10,300 High Roller	72	€691,200	Eric Sfez	€242,000

2013	€5,300 Main Event	782	€3,753,600	Remi Castaignon	€770,000
	€10,300 High Roller	99	€816,000	Vojtech Ruzicka	€313,000

2014	€5,300 Main Event	671	€3,220,800	Sotirios Koutoupas	€614,000
	€10,300 High Roller	115	€1,104,000	Dominik Panka	€272,000

From 2010 to 2013, the trend for the field size of the EPT Deauville Main Event has followed similar fashion to the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Main Event that took place just prior. From 2013 to 2014, the PCA Main Event field was larger than the year before, whereas the EPT Deauville Main Event field dropped for the third year in a row, but keep in mind that there was a strong marketing and promotional push behind the PCA Main Event garnering a $10,000,000 guarantee.

It is also worth noting that the at this year's PCA, the Main Event saw numbers slide from 1,031 in 2014 to 816 in 2015, but the $100,000 Super High Roller and the $25,000 High Roller both set new records for field size. That said, one could estimate that this year's EPT Deauville Main Event could draw in the ball park of 600-650 players, but the High Roller should once again see an increase for the sixth consecutive year.

The stop itself has also grown throughout the years, just as most of the EPT stops have done. In the first year it was on the tour's schedule, EPT Deauville had just five events, ranging in buy-ins from €560 to €20,300. For this upcoming stop, six seasons later, there are 70 tournaments, including satellite and France Poker Series events, ranging in buy-ins from €75 to €10,300.