Stephane Albertini is a 30-year old poker player from France with $492,711 in lifetime tournament earning. While mainly a cash-game player for the past 14 years, Albertini tends to travel for the ring-game action and occasionally jumps into a tournament or two.
That's how he managed to finish sixth in the 2010 EPT Deauville for $182,616 and a 46th-place finish in the 2011 World Series of Poker Main Event for $160,036. Albertini also has tournament cashes from such places as Mauritius, Spain, Belgium and Germany. Today he'll be adding his first WSOP Europe cash to his résumé.
It would be an entirely fair statement to say that Joseph Cheong is one of the best young tournament players in the game today. If you don't know who Cheong is, he famously finished in 3rd place at the 2010 World Series of Poker Main Event. Cheong earned $4,130,049 for his Main Event run and since then he has amassed a total of $5,377,687 in live tournament winnings.
That being said, the prestigious World Series of Poker championship bracelet has since evaded Cheong. Over the summer, Cheong finished second in Event 6: $5,000 No-Limit Hold'em Mixed-Max. After just missing out on this event, Cheong had pointed out via Twitter that he scored a 3rd place followed by a 2nd place, and the next logical step for him would be a 1st place finish. That could happen today. Cheong will be bringing 1.966 million chips into play which is good for 3rd place in chips. If Cheong can best this star studded final table, that ever elusive WSOP bracelet may finally be his.
Paul Tedeschi is a 22-year-old French poker player who is relatively new onto the poker scene. Despite his youth, Tedeschi managed to burst onto the poker scene with an impressive showing at the 2012 Partouche Poker Tour € 8,500 No Limit Hold'em - Main Event. Tedeschi scored a 13th place finish in this event which netted him a score of €54,995.
It was less than a month before Tedeschi was able to earn his second major tournament cash, and that event occurred right here at the 2012 World Series of Poker Europe. Tedeschi bested an impressive field to ultimately finish in 9th place in Event #5: €10,450 Mixed Max - No-Limit Hold'em. No matter how Tedeschi finishes, this will be his largest tournament score to date, and with how well he has performed since bursting onto the poker scene, we expect big things from him in the future.
For the past two weeks, the 2012 World Series of Poker Europe has played out at the luxurious Majestic Barrière in Cannes, France. Now we’re down to the final day, and to say they’ve saved the best for last would be an understatement. The €10,450 No-Limit Hold'em Main Event began with a field of 420 players, but after four days of cutthroat play we’re down to the final table of eight, which is headlines by none other than the chip leader and 12-time bracelet winner—Phil Hellmuth.
Not only is the “Poker Brat” looking to capture bracelet #13, which would make him the only multiple-bracelet winner in 2012, but will win the WSOP Player of the Year title if he manages to take down the Main Event and Greg Merson doesn't win the October Nine Main Event at the end of the month. Either a second, third or fourth-place finish will also give Hellmuth a legitimate shot at the POY title.
Day 4 action saw some big names fall including 2005 WSOP runner-up Steve Dannenmann; high-stakes legend David Benyamine; former EPT winners Liv Boeree and Toby Lewis; last year’s 8th-place finisher Max Silver; the always-entertaining Scott Seiver; and two-time bracelet winner Andy Frankenberger. With that said, a few big names managed to make the final table including two-time bracelet winner Jason Mercier and 2012 November Niner Joseph Cheong.
Here’s a look at the final table chip counts:
2012 WSOP Europe Final Table
Seat
Player
Count
1
Paul Tedeschi
543,000
2
Joseph Cheong
1,966,000
3
Stephane Albertini
1,162,000
4
Christopher Brammer
851,000
5
Jason Mercier
652,000
6
Sergii Baranov
3,339,000
7
Phil Hellmuth
3,434,000
8
Stephane Girault
664,000
Play will resume today at 13:45 PM CET. Due to live television scheduling, the players will play until four players remain and then take a break until 21:45 PM CET where they will resume and play until a winner emerges. Be sure to stay tuned to PokerNews as we provide updates from the exciting conclusion to one of the most prestigious events of the year!
