Eric Afriat was in the big blind and had a raise to 11,000 in front of him before Jean-Vincent Lehut shoved for 87,000 on the button. Afriat snap-called.
Jean-Vincent Lehut: A♦Q♠
Eric Afriat: A♥K♠
Afriat had Lehut dominated and held up through the 5♣5♦7♣8♥10♣ board to send him to the rail and boost his stack up past 300,000.
Roman Stoica raised to 5,000 on the button, Derk van Luijk three-bet to 15,000 in the big blind, and Stoica called.
The flop came 10♥2♦7♥ and both players checked to the 5♥ turn. Van Luijk then led out for 7,500 and Stoica called.
Van Luijk checked the Q♠ river and Stoica bet 12,000. Van Luijk quickly called and Stoica showed 9♠8♠ for a missed straight draw. Van Luijk turned over Q♣J♣ for a rivered pair of queens to take the pot.
This week’s field size of 1,747 entries at the spacious Palais des Congrès in Paris has made the €5,300 PokerStars European Poker Tour Main Event the largest one ever held outside of Barcelona.
The tournament saw a 9% increase over last year, thanks to 1,224 unique players and 523 reentries. The event is now the sixth-largest EPT Main Event in history, generating an overall prize pool of €8,385,600.
Largest EPT Main Event Fields
Year
Main Event
Entries
Prize Pool (EUR)
2022
EPT Barcelona
2,294
€11,125,900
2023
EPT Barcelona
2,120
€10,282,000
2019
EPT Barcelona
1,988
€9,641,800
2018
EPT Barcelona
1,931
€9,365,350
2016
EPT Barcelona
1,785
€8,657,250
2024
EPT Paris
1,747
€8,385,600
2015
EPT Barcelona
1,694
€8,215,900
2023
EPT Paris
1,606
€7,708,800
A total of 69 different countries were represented this week in Paris, up from 65 at this event a year ago. As expected, the host country of France led the way for a second straight year with 300 players or 24.51% of the field. The rest of the top five nations also remained the same, including Italy (78 players - 6.37%), Germany (68 players - 5.56%), the United Kingdom (66 players - 5.39%) and Spain (58 or 4.74%).
Further down the list is Romania with 54 players for 4.41% of the field, the United States with 44 players for 3.59% of the field, and The Netherlands with 35 players for 2.86% of the field.
EPT Paris Main Event Nationalities (Courtesy of PokerStars)
Some of the other countries represented this year include Argentina (6 players - 0.49%), Croatia (3 players - 0.25%), Mexico (2 players - 0.16%) and Malaysia (1 player - 0.08%).
A full breakdown of the nationalities represented in the EPT Paris Main Event is available in the table below.
Stefan Lehner and Igor Picone were in the blinds as they got the rest of Lehner's 40,500 in the middle before the flop.
Stefan Lehner: A♠J♠
Igor Picone: A♦3♣
Lehner had Picone dominated and began filming the action as the 2♥K♦5♥ flop gave Picone a straight draw. The 9♦ turn was safe for Lehner, while he secured the double up when the 5♦ fell on the river.
"Wow, so sick. Two rivers in a row, I would not play poker again for a while," Harpreet Gill chimed in after Gary Mamou had just gone from an above-average stack to short stack.
The latest setback for Mamou came when he defended the big blind against Joshua Duce in the cutoff and they got it in after the 9♥6♥4♠A♥ turn.
Joshua Duce: A♠A♣
Gary Mamou: J♥8♥
The river brought another heart but it was the 4♥ which paired the board to leave Mamou completely stunned. Duce doubled fo 77,000 and his opponent dropped to twenty big blinds.
