EPT
It’s over. Finished. Kaput. Ended. Season 9 of PokerStars’ European Poker Tour has come to an end. The Finale was the €100k Super High Roller that was won by German (Austrian for tax purposes) heads up specialist Max Altergott. He takes away a €1,746,400 prize for first place, and in doing so denied Jason Mercier an EPT “Triple Crown” win of Main Event, High Roller and Super High Roller wins. Mercier took second place, and pocketed €1,115,700 for his efforts.
The Super high Roller didn’t attract the same attention in the Monte Carlo Casino as the Main Event had done previously, and while the final table was live streamed to thousands of people across the internet the rail surrounding the table was curiously sparsely populated.
The action last night had played down to the money, so everyone who arrived at the table today had locked up some sort of payout, and short stack Mike Watson was the first to leave, with a healthy €218,300 pay out.
An interesting side note from the live stream: apparently, while before the play began on day two it was unlimited re-entries, not a single player at the final table had entered more than once. This meant that every player at the final table had locked up a profit.
The next to go was the other short stack at the table, Scott Seiver, who had prolonged his agony by doubling up before his departure. Seiver added €266,900 to his piggy bank
The only Russian at the table, Vladimir Troyanovsky, was busted in 5th place for €339,500 when he called Mizzi’s shove over his under the gun raise with K
Q
. Mizzi turned over A
J
, and the board ran out with enough bricks to build a new hospital to send the Russian to the rail.
Timothy Adams was the next to leave the glamorous yet empty final table stage as his 99 couldn’t fade the A on the turn against Altergott’s A8 after Adams had shoved his dwindling stack from the button over Max’s early opening bet. Adams pockets were filled with €485,100 to compensate him for losing the flip.
During a break, a deal was discussed, Mercier declined saying something about not wanting to get a headache from working out the numbers.
Sorel Mizzi, who had held the Chip lead at several points during the day, was the next to go. His KQ weren’t in one of the 43.5% of universes that would have allowed them to beat the pocket Jacks of Altergott. €679,100 was paid over to Mizzi as the remaining pair of poker players again discussed a deal. Again, nothing came of it, and the two decided to play for the title, money and honour without a deal in place.
The title was decided in one massive pot when pre flop, Altergott 4-bet to 1 Million from the button and Mercier called. A flop of 87J saw Mercier check/call the 700k bet. The turn of 4 saw Jason check again, and Altergott slide just over 1.2 Million over the line. Mercier responded by moving his whole stack over the line, which was about 3 big blinds bigger than the one in front of the German.
Mercier turned over K7 for a pair of sevens, and a King high flush draw, but Altergott had the black Queens in his hand, and the 2 river didn’t change anything.
Mercier had to fold the next had when he got 72o on the button, but was all in the next hand with T6. Max turned over J
9, and the board gave everyone a sweat. The 65K put Mercier ahead, but the turn and river of 7 8 sealed the deal for Max, and it was all over.
With no more EPT events until Barcalona in August, we’ll have to find something else to do over the summer. I’ve heard there might be something going on in a small dessert town in Nevada involving poker during this time. I guess I should look into that.
