€5,300 Main Event
Day 6 Started
2014 PokerStars.fr EPT Deauville
€5,300 Main Event
Day: 6
Event Info
Final Results
Event Info
Level Info
2014 PokerStars.fr EPT Deauville
Buy-in
€5,000
Prize Pool
€3,211,200
Entries
671
Level
31
Blinds
60,000 / 120,000
Ante
20,000
Seat 8, Sotirios Koutoupas, 31, Thessaloniki, Greece - 6,400,000
Sotirios Koutoupas, 31, already has nearly $750,000 in lifetime tournament winnings – a large chunk of which he earned with his €510,000 runner-up finish to Ramzi Jelassi at EPT Prague in Season 9. Yesterday, Koutoupas told the PokerStars Blog: “"I want to be the first Greek player who wins the EPT. I'll do my best.” Koutoupas, currently ranked third on the Greece all time money list, is one of a troop of Greek players who are clocking up big cashes on the tour: Georgios Karakousis was runner-up at EPT London in October and and George Manousos Sotiropoulos snagged €700,000 for his runner-up finish at EPT Prague. Koutoupas is not a pro or a full-time player – he helps run his family’s wholesale business - but has started picking up results and stacks that some tour pros would be pretty jealous of, including 56th at EPT9 Berlin for €15,000 and 25th at the recent EPT Prague for €24,900.
Seat 7: Rustem Muratov, 41, Kazan, Russia - 1,070,000 chips
Rustem Muratov qualified for EPT Deauville on PokerStars for €82 and is already in massive profit after winning Skrill’s Last Longer (the €5,300 Deauville buy-in is credited to his Skrill account). Now the 41-year-old from Kazan in Tatarstan, Russia, is headed for the biggest live cash of his life. Muratov, who works as a distributor for the electrical equipment company Schneider, is guaranteed at least €63,900 for making the EPT Deauville final and whatever happens, is already up at least €69,118. This is his first ever EPT, only his fourth live tournament and the biggest buy-in event he’s competed in. He has only two recorded live cashes to date, the biggest being $2,356 for 18th place at a tourney in Cyprus.
He said: “I’m already very happy. My best result before now was winning the seat for this event! I like Deauville, it looks like a fairytale place (apart from the rain).” Muratov and his wife Svetlana are soon to celebrate their 20th wedding anniversary and have two older daughters and a nine-month old son. Svetlana couldn’t come to Deauville but is following all the action on EPTLive back home. Muratov is being supported here by his friend Ilyas who came along to play the cash games.
Seat 6: Eli Heath, 25, Banbury, UK - 2,475,000 chips
A graduate in business and finance from Cardiff University, Eli Heath has never actually had a job other than poker and has been a pro for five years. Heath mainly plays online but has been travelling the EPT circuit for a couple of years and won his first title in Deauville earlier this week in the €1,000 "NL Turbo Random Bounty" tournament for €28,000. He has already recorded in-the-money finishes across the globe, from Australia to Las Vegas and back to Europe, but is now guaranteed the biggest live cash of his career at the final table of an EPT stop he has rechristened Dough-ville.
Seat 5, Anthony Lerust, 24, from Amiens, France; living in Albufeira, Portugal, 1,295,000 chips
Anthony ‘Laplume’ Lerust was born in the north of France but moved to the south to “live my dreams and share my passion for rap music, hip hop and poker with my friends there”. Living in Albi, he became a member of the ‘Skarkuteur’ team of players, also including the French pro Anthony Cierco. Success eluded him however so last September he moved with his best friend Pierre Morin to the Algarve in Portugal. Lerust plays regularly on PokerStars.com and PokerStars.fr, enjoying deep runs in lots of the regular tourneys such as the Sunday Special, Le Classico, Night On Stars and The Big€50. He recently final-tabled a €1K FCOOP side event and finished fourth in the PokerStars Quarter Million. Lerust is a talented online grinder who, according to media, has been able to adapt to swings of live poker. His family are following him back home in Picardy “especially my mother” and his friends sent him the following message: ‘Anthony, il est temps d’envoyer des bassines’ (‘Anthony it's time to turn on the power!’)
In November 2013, Lerust finished 45th in the FPS Paris Main Event for €2,800 but today’s final table at EPT Deauville is his best result so far. His agent and a couple of friends from the Toulouse area have come to Deauville to play the FPS and will be railing at the final. He said: “I’m very happy to be in Normandy. Deauville is a stunning little town and the atmosphere is fantastic. With this prize money, you will definitely see me again, as I intend to play all EPTs in 2014.’
Seat 4, Eugene Katchalov, 32, Team PokerStars Pro, Ukraine, 3,280,000 chips
Born in Kiev, Ukraine, Team PokerStars Pro Eugene Katchalov spent much of his childhood in Brooklyn, New York. He graduated in Finance and International Business and was then a stock market trader before becoming a poker pro in 2003. He has already come close to an EPT title before – third at EPT8 Barcelona for $453,812 – and is thrilled to make another final table. He said: “I am just so happy to get another chance at an EPT title, considering I didn’t get one in Barcelona two years ago.”
His live tournament record is one of the most impressive of any player in recent years, with huge cash finishes at most of the world’s biggest tournaments. He already has a WPT victory and WSOP bracelet so an EPT victory would award him the coveted Triple Crown. He already has several cashes on the European Poker Tour including third EPT6 London High Roller for $307,247 and third at EPT8 Barcelona for $453,812. He also scored a huge win at the first-ever $100,000 Super High Roller event at the 2011 PCA, beating fellow Team PokerStars Pro Daniel Negreanu heads-up for $1,500,000.
In 2011, Katchalov won the WSOP $1,500 Seven Card Stud event for $122,909 and but his biggest cash was third in the 2010 $10,000 HORSE event for $248,831. He won the 2007 WPT’s Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic for $2,482,605, one of the biggest payouts in WPT history, and the biggest prize of his career so far. His total live earnings already total more than $7 million and in 2011 he was Bluff Player of the Year. Eugene also has two WCOOP titles - the Heads-Up event in 2009 for $170,000 and Stud Hi/Lo in 2012 for $24,588.
Seat 3: Carlo De Benedittis, 35, from Campobasso, Italy; living in Paris – PokerStars.fr qualifier – 685,000 chips
Carlo De Benedittis won his package to EPT Deauville on PokerStars.fr for a total investment of €20. Winning the package was already his biggest result ever so making it to the final is, in his words, astonishing. He said: “Honestly, when I won the package, I looked at it and it said, ‘Hotel for eight nights’ and I was thinking to myself: ’What on earth am I doing to do for eight nights?’”. The 35-year-old is from the town of Campobasso in southern Italy but now lives in Paris where he’s a purchaser for the Smurfit Kappe paper company. He’s been playing poker in home games with friends since he was 15 and online for around ten years. His only other big score was making the live televised final of PokerStars.it’s All Stars of Poker contest in 2010. He bust in the first round. He’s here in Deauville on his own but his mother, twin brother Andrea and older brother Luca are following the action on EPTLive - and teasing him relentlessly on whatsapp. He’s was all in fairly early on Day 5 but survived a one-outer against chip leader Koutoupas for a crucial double-up. Every day since he got to Deauville, he’s made it a mission to get nearer and nearer the sea; today he dipped his toe in. It was freezing but he’s now thinking that he might have to go for a swim tomorrow to keep up his good luck.
Seat 2: Harry Law, 27, London, UK - 3,130,000 chips
Harry Law is a live cash game player who touts his talent at the £2/£5 and £5/£10 cash tables in casinos around London. Law, who says that he’s not a tournament player, has only notched up a few small cashes before, yet is on the verge of claiming one of poker’s most prestigious titles. Perhaps it’s time to reconsider that specialisation.
Seat 1: Oliver Price, 23, London, UK – PokerStars player - 1,735,000 chips
By making the final table in the EPT10 Deauville Main Event, Oliver Price is looking to add another career highlight to his deep run in last summer's World Series Main Event where he made it to Day 6 before falling in 49th place. His $151,063 cash for that finish was nearly ten times his career live winnings up to that point after collecting various small scores in Las Vegas and the UK. Meanwhile Price has had significant success online, including chopping the Sunday Million early last year for an even bigger prize of $184,688. After first learning the game in his early teens, the southeast Londoner now prefers cash games (both online and live) to tournaments. This marks only his second EPT after playing EPT London last October.
The Tournament Starts (in an Hour) (full)
As the cards will be face up for this EPT Live Streamed final table, tournament reporting will start in an hour. The following eight players will battle it out for that coveted €614,000 first place prize.
| Seat | Player | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Oliver Price | 1,735,000 | 43 |
| 2 | Harry Law | 3,130,000 | 78 |
| 3 | Carlo De Benedittis | 685,000 | 17 |
| 4 | Eugene Katchalov | 3,280,000 | 82 |
| 5 | Anthony Lerust | 1,295,000 | 32 |
| 6 | Eli Heath | 2,475,000 | 62 |
| 7 | Rustem Muratov | 1,070,000 | 27 |
| 8 | Sotirios Koutoupas | 6,400,000 | 160 |
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
6,400,000 | |
|
3,280,000 | |
|
3,130,000 | |
|
2,475,000 | |
|
1,735,000 | |
|
1,295,000 | |
|
1,070,000 | |
|
685,000 |