It was two years ago that the EPT was last here for its Grand Final and it is an event that Nicolas Chouity will remember well. The man from Lebanon withstood the pressure from 848 entries to win the first prize of €1,700,000 and here is is acting as if he never left.
We joined the action on a flop of , Chouity had checked, Andries Swart had checked and a player in the cutoff had bet 2,400. The action fell back to Chouity and he made the call, before Swart check-raised to 7,000. The initial bettor folded but Chouity decided to draw a line in the sand and moved enough blue 5k chips into the middle to put Swart all-in. Swart made the call and it was a set versus the flush draw.
Chouity
Swart
The turn was the and then the river delivered quads for Chouity. Swart was sent packing and Chouity now has 80,000 chips.
Will "The Thrill" Failla has been eliminated it the worse way possible. The table told us that Failla had flopped a set of tens in a three-bet pot and moments later was heading for the rail. The board paired on the turn, giving Failla a full house, while his opponent was holding pocket kings. A king on the river gave his opponent a higher full house and Failla was eliminated after calling off all of his chips when the last card was drawn.
"I can't take anymore of these beats," said the man with over $3.5 million in live tournament earnings to his name.
Earlier we reported on Roberto Romanello's exit and commented on how disappointed he would be with is exit, as he tried to gather points for the EPT Player of the Year race (the Welshman was lying in second place before his early exit). The man that Romanello is chasing is Ondrej Vinklarek and he is still alive and well. We just witnessed him doubling up with versus the of Andrzej Siemieniak and he now has 72,000 chips.
Andrew Chen raised to 600 on the button and Phil Ivey called in the big blind. The pair were soon staring at a flop of where Ivey check-called a 800 Chen bet. The turn of was checked through, and then Ivey bet 2,000 when he saw the river . Chen mucked his hand and Ivey won the pot.
George Danzer lost more than two-thirds of his stack in the first level. He's re-building, slowly. We caught the Team PokerStars Pro opening to 700 from the hijack and continuing for 800 on a flop. A player on the button called but folded on the flop.
Dermot Blain doubled up Roger Suter after putting him to the test for his tournament life. The two were heads up to the turn where the board read . Blain had 20,000 out in front of him to cover the 17,800 Suter had behind. The Swiss tanked for a two minutes and called with and was up against Blain's . The river came and Blaina handed over the necessary chips
Talal Shakerchi has been moved tables and has dropped a few chips. He may be 100k down after going from chip leader to out in the Super High-Roller but he seems to be reveling in his environment away from his stress full day job as a hedge fund manager.