The European Poker Tour Grand Final just reached its final 10; unfortunately FTR’s Ben Sulsky, aka Sauce123 is not one of them. Day four started out with 39 players who were all guaranteed a good payday but a difference of over $200,000 between 39th and 9th proved to be strong motivation for the field to push hard for the final table.
Notables Freddie Deeb and Raymond Rahme both went out early in 30th and 27th respectively. An interesting story was Vincent Secher who was still in the tournament on day four but had been camping to save money. When PokerStars heard about this though, they put him up in the hotel where the tournament was being held. He did not make it to the final group, finishing in 13th after showing up in his bathrobe with a PokerStars logo to show his appreciation.
It was a roller coaster day for one-time chip leader Antonio Esfandiari, who played in a strange hand with Stig Top Rasmussen where he limped with queens and lost a good portion of his stack when Rasmussen spiked an ace on the turn. Esfandiari kept playing solid though and in the final 10 with about 700,000 chips.
With 11 players left the tournament officials ruled the tournament was taking too long and play would continue until the end of the current level. Joe Hachem was looking to become the second triple crown winner after Gavin Griffin but ended up being taken out in 11th after an all-in hand with CardPlayer’s Online Player of the Year, Issac “westmenloAA” Baron. The final 10 are:
Glenn Chorny — 3,370,000
Isaac Baron — 2,365,000
Michael Martin — 1,570,000
Maxime Villemure — 1,220,000
Denes Kalo — 957,000
Antonio Esfandiari — 735,000
Luca Pagano — 705,000
Valeriy Ilikyan — 650,000
Stig Top Rasmussen — 590,000
Henrik Gwinner — 466,000
They will be competing tomorrow for the 3.2 million dollar first prize.