February 06 2012, Mickey Doft

The 2012 PokerStars.fr European Poker Tour Deauville Main Event concluded on Monday night. Vadzim Kursevich emerged triumphant from a field of 889 players. Kursevich began the final table second in chips and endured a tumultuous journey before finally claiming victory.

Mick Graydon, the short stack to begin the final table, lasted about two hours before he shoved into chip leader Paul Guichard’s . The board rolled out to end Graydon’s run in eighth place. Following him to the rail was Team PokerStars Pro Luca Pagano. Unable to gain any consistent traction, Pagano three-bet shoved with . Vuong Than Trong, the raiser, called with and held up through the board.

About three and a half hours later Olivier Rogez was the next to fall, doing so in unusual fashion. His 14 big-blind stack slowly dwindled to less than two big blinds before Rogez called all-in from the big blind with . The pot was three-handed and following a flop, Paul Guichard isolated with . Rogez found help from the turn, but the river ended his Main Event run in sixth place. Roughly two hours passed before Bruno Jais exited in fifth place. He shoved on a flop with , but ran into Vuong Than Trong’s . The turn gave Jais two extra outs to win, but the river was not among them.

The players took a one hour-break and when they returned, the chips started to fly. Than Trong was leading, but lost much of his stack to Kursevich who was in second place. After raising on the button, Than Trong watched as Kursevich three-bet from the small blind. Action folded back to Than Trong and he four-bet shoved with . Kursevivh called all-in immediately with and won the pot when the board fell .

With the huge chip lead, Kursevich went to work eliminating the shorter stacks. First, with , he eliminated Yorane Kerignard (who held ) when neither player improved his hand on a board. A few hands later, Than Trong got it in with against Kursevich’s , but once again, the board improved neither player.

Heads-up play began with Kursevich holding just less than a 7:1 chip lead, but Guichard stormed back to make the stacks nearly even before the final hand occurred. The blinds and antes were at the 125,000/250,000/30,000 level when Kursevich min-raised the button to 500,000. A three-bet to 1,250,000 came from Guichard and after Kursevich called, the flop came down .

Guichard bet 625,000, which kept Kursevich in the hand to see the land on the turn. Not slowing down, Guichard bet 1,325,000. After a few moments Kursevich moved all-in, and got an immediate call from Guichard, who tabled for a set. Kursevich was very live, with straight and flush outs, holding and sure enough, the hit the river to give Kursevich a straight and bring the tournament to a close.

Final Table Payouts

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February 05 2012, Marc Convey

It took a little more than six hours to reduce the field from 24 players to eight, and set Monday’s final table for the PokerStars.fr European Poker Tour Deauville.

Sunday mostly belonged to Paul Guichard. He will enter the final table as the chip leader with 5,955,000 in chips. He won a big pot off of Olivier Rogez, when he made the nut flush with on a board. Guichard took over the chip lead, and hardly looked back. He is followed closely by Vadzim Kursevich, who has impressively made his second EPT final table within a year (he finished third at EPT7 Berlin).

Luca Pagano came into play on Sunday as the chip leader but didn’t have things go his own way like they did on Day 4. He still made the final table, back in the pack in fifth with 2,010,000 in chips. We were lauding over Pagano after he made the money, his 20th in all. This is the Team PokerStars Pro’s seventh final table, yet another record extending bar set higher. We are running out of superlatives to describe his achievements on this tour. All he needs now is that elusive title, and then he can change his name to Mr. EPT.

The unfortunate player who finished in ninth place and will miss out on Monday’s festivities is Sergey Baburin. His journey came to an end when he got his chips in with on the turn of a board, only for Bruno Jais to call with . Baburin was drawing dead and the final table was set.

Chris Brammer, Kevin Vandersmissen, Marc Inizan, and Ignat Liviu were among the players who came into play on Sunday, but had their hopes dashed short of the final table.

This is how the final table will line up on Monday:

Play will begin at 1200 CET (0300 PST) on Monday. The minimum a player will take home is “67,200 for eighth, whereas the winner will take home “875,000. French gaming law states that no deals can be agreed between the players, so the life-changing jumps in the payouts will cause a few jangling nerves.

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