Aurelien Russo was already all-in and at risk, awaiting his fate while a small side pot had emerged between Reza Tabatabaei in the big blind and Santhosh Suvarna from under the gun. The two active players checked the A♥10♦10♣5♣ turn and 8♣ river for all cards to be revealed.
Tabatabaei flashed his 2♠2♥, Russo had the 7♠7♣ whereas Suvarna's A♣J♦ earned the main and side pot.
The board read 2♥7♦2♣10♦ and around 50,000 was in the middle, in a battle between Gianluca Speranza in the small blind and Hwany Lee on the button.
Speranza had put out a bet of 24,000, only to be faced with a raise to 59,500 by Lee.
Speranza pondered the position for a while, and ultimately moved all in for another 190,000.
Lee, who had 55,000 left behind, went deep into the tank. After around three minutes, he sighed and made the fold.
Speranza exhaled deeply, looking relieved, and turned over A♦9♠ for ace-high and raked in a chunky pot. Lee tapped the table in acknowledgement of his opponent's aggressive play.
Julien Martini was spotted all-in and at risk for his last 29,000 in the cutoff and one of the table big stacks looked him up in Ihar Soika on the button.
Julien Martini: A♣K♠
Ihar Soika: 9♦9♥
Along with his two overcards, Martini also flopped a flush draw on 8♣7♣2♣. However, the 5♠ turn and 10♠ river were both blanks to send the French poker pro out of the tournament.
Soika pulled ahead of Sergio Coutinho on the same table and two tables over, Volga Uyanik is another big stack.
"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.
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.
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.
