Who Will Take the $1.8 Million First Place Prize?
The best players in the world, no exception, came to Monaco for the 2014 PokerStars and Monte-Carlo® Casino EPT Grand Final €100,000 Super High Roller. The cash game guys that battle each other online for the highest stakes, and the players that won the most money in tournaments all over the world, everybody came to the sovereign city-state on the French Riviera.
Phil Ivey was talking to Patrik Antonius, Daniel Negreanu chatted it up with Jonathan Duhamel. Antonio Esfandiari squared off with Vanessa Selbst and Isaac Haxton went to battle with the German High Rollers Tobias Reinkemeier, Fabian Quoss and Philipp Gruissem.
All those guys didn't make it to the final table though. The 62 entries (50 unique, 12 reentries) made for a €6,015,240 prize pool and just eight players remain right now. They're in the money but not all are guaranteed to make a profit just yet. Though they take home a minimum of €241,000, that would still leave Daniel Colman €59,000 short as he bought back in twice after busting his first €100,000 bullet on Day 1.
The final table is dominated by the group of Asian business men who made their way to the Super High Roller on European soil for the first time. Paul Phua, Lo Shing Fung and Richard Yong proved they can play with the best here in the Principality of Monaco. Flanking the Asian business men are the Americans with Cates, Colman and Busquet all still in contention. To complete the final table there's short stack Igor Kurganov and of course Ole Schemion. We say 'of course' as he's in the form of his life and he might just be the best no-limit hold'em tournament player in the world at the moment. Schemion is on fire with huge cashes everywhere. He won the €10,000 High Roller in Sanremo just two weeks ago, and won the €10,000 satellite to this very €100,000 event to keep himself in form.
The seating is as followed:
| Seat | Player | Country | Chips |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dan Cates | United States | 2,341,000 |
| 2 | Richard Yong | China | 1,301,000 |
| 3 | Olivier Busquet | United States | 1,038,000 |
| 4 | Rono Lo | China | 4,558,000 |
| 5 | Daniel Colman | United States | 1,398,000 |
| 6 | Igor Kurganov | Russia | 261,000 |
| 7 | Ole Schemion | Germany | 2,818,000 |
| 9 | Paul Phua | Malaysia | 1,785,000 |
The eight finalists will start at 1 p.m. local time. The tournament coverage will be on a one-hour delay as the live stream will be cards up, and they will battle it out for the following prizes:
| Place | Prize |
|---|---|
| 1 | €1,804,000 |
| 2 | €1,305,000 |
| 3 | €842,300 |
| 4 | €637,600 |
| 5 | €493,340 |
| 6 | €385,000 |
| 7 | €307,000 |
| 8 | €241,000 |
Check back in 80 minutes as we'll cover every single hand this final table. The reporting will of course be accompanied by interviews from PokerNews hostess Jennifer Robles, and photos from PokerNews photographer Danny Maxwell.
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
4,558,000 | |
|
2,818,000 | |
|
2,341,000 | |
|
1,785,000 | |
|
1,398,000 | |
|
1,301,000 | |
|
1,038,000 | |
|
261,000 |