Who Will Reach the Final Day of the 2023 EPT Paris €5,300 Main Event
The sixth largest Main Event in the history of the PokerStars European Poker Tour will crown a winner throughout the next two days. Out of a field of 1,606 entries, only 15 hopefuls remain in contention for the biggest slice of the €7,708,800 prize pool. Among them are two PokerStars online qualifiers and one of them leads the way at the Hyatt Regency Paris Etoile.
Romania's Razvan Belea enters the penultimate tournament day of the 2023 EPT Paris €5,300 Main Event with 7,285,000 in chips whereas Fabrice Bigot sits in the middle of the pack of shorter stacks with 1,940,000 chips to his name. Both will aim to repeat the victory of Piotr Nurzynski back in 2018, who also ran deep in this event and finished in 30th place for €28,350 this time.
It won't be an easy ride for either of the two qualifiers as the remaining field of contenders is filled with a slate of poker enthusiasts from all over Europe. Denmark's Johan Schultz-Pedersen, who calls Austria his home base these days, sits in second place on the leaderboard with 6,620,000 followed by Denzel Spekman (5,440,000).
Day 3 chip leader Konstantin Held (2,640,000) is no longer the hero atop the leaderboard after an ill-timed move against Henri Kasper (4,790,000) with both players returning in the overnight top ten.
Perhaps the biggest name still left in contention is online poker legend Niklas "lena900" Astedt, who is second to last in the counts with 1,415,000. Well-known rising poker pros Harry Lodge (2,325,000), Mehdi Chaoui (1,760,000) and Arthur Conan (1,420,000) have all had plenty of deep runs on the live poker circuit already.
Day 5 is scheduled to commence at noon local time with level 27, which features blinds of 30,000-60,000 and a big blind ante of 60,000. One further redraw will take place once the field is down to the final nine contenders and the goal of the day is reaching the last six players for tomorrow's grand finale.
All PokerNews updates for the live-streamed final table and the outer table will be published according to the 30-minute security delay in order to not spoil any of the action.
Day 5 Seat Assignments
| Table | Seat | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | Arthur Conan | France | 1,420,000 | 24 |
| 1 | 3 | Johan Schultz-Pedersen | Denmark | 6,620,000 | 110 |
| 1 | 4 | Mathieu Di Meglio | France | 2,000,000 | 33 |
| 1 | 5 | Sven Stok | Netherlands | 2,100,000 | 35 |
| 1 | 6 | Razvan Belea | Romania | 7,285,000 | 121 |
| 1 | 7 | Konstantin Held | Germany | 2,640,000 | 44 |
| 1 | 8 | Henri Kasper | Estonia | 4,790,000 | 80 |
| 2 | 1 | Peter Jorgne | Sweden | 4,815,000 | 80 |
| 2 | 2 | Denzel Spekman | Netherlands | 5,440,000 | 91 |
| 2 | 3 | Saar Wilf | Israel | 1,330,000 | 22 |
| 2 | 4 | Harry Lodge | United Kingdom | 2,325,000 | 39 |
| 2 | 5 | Mehdi Chaoui | Morocco | 1,760,000 | 29 |
| 2 | 6 | Niklas Astedt | Sweden | 1,415,000 | 24 |
| 2 | 7 | Brian Delaney | United Kingdom | 2,355,000 | 39 |
| 2 | 8 | Fabrice Bigot | France | 1,940,000 | 32 |
and Stok left the table with a sigh and "nothing you can do there".
flop, Held checked to Delaney who bet 110,000. Held called to see the 
fall on the flop.
on the river and Held checked. Delaney moved all in for 1,580,000, which was slightly less than what was in Held's stack.
for trip deuces, but Delaney turned over 
for a full house of tens full of deuces, leaving Held with just over two big blinds.
and Denzel Spekman raised to 225,000 with 
. 
and Jorgne checked again. Spekman bet 225,000 and Jorgne check-raised to 675,000. Spekman called and the river was 
and Bigot turned a pair of aces to crack Spekman's pocket queens for a double.
, indeed pairing Astedt's deuce.
on the turn had the Swedish star primed for a critical double-up, but the 
