April 27 2012, Lee Davy

Day 2 of the PokerStars.com and Monte-Carlo® Casino European Poker Tour Grand Final has come to an end with Team PokerStars Pro Max Martinez sitting atop the chip count with a stack of 456,300. Martinez began Day 2 quickly growing his stack to join the plethora of players fighting for the higher ground. Then in the penultimate level of the day, disaster struck.

Martinez and Fabrice Soulier were involved in a 210,000-chip pot where Martinez was holding and Soulier held . The pot would have pushed Martinez right into contention, but a foul queen on the flop handed the pot to Soulier and left Martinez lamenting his luck with only 65,000 chips.

In the last level of the night, Martinez went on what can only be described as an almighty tear in which he grew his 65,000-chip stack to a sumptuous 456,300, climaxing in the elimination of Ivan Kudriavtcev after Kudriavtcev ran his pocket sevens into Martinez’ pocket tens.

But long before Martinez popped up on our radar, Day 2 began with a number of high-profile eliminations. Team PokerStars Pros Vanessa Selbst, Ville Wahlbeck and Victor Ramdin joined Kevin MacPhee, David Vamplew and Samuel Chartier out of the door. PokerStars qualifier Malte Moenning began the day ninth in chips and was the first player to eclipse Nick Yunis at the top with 220,000 chips.

Team PokerStars Pro Pius Heinz started to gather some momentum as did his teammate Angel Guillen, while at the other end of things Joe Cada and Daniel Negreanu exited stage left. Sam Trickett left the field after a series of unfortunate coolers, and as Level 11 began, the newly crowned “100,000 Super High Roller winner, Justin Bonomo took the chip lead after eliminating two players in a three-way all-in to take him to 242,000 in chips. Hanging onto the coat tails of the “1,600,000 man were the likes of David Sands, John Eames, Nick Yunis and Malte Moenning.

In Level 12, David “Doc” Sands was the first player to pass the summit of 300,000 chips. Also in Level 12, Eames was eliminated, as was former EPT champion Vladimir Geshkenbein. Then there was a clash involving Mohsin Charania and Nick Yunis that thrust Charania into the EPT Grand Final spotlight for the first time.

With the blinds at 800/1,600 and an ante of 200, both Nick Yunis and Mohsin Charania had a 143 big blind stack and 131 big blind stack respectively. You would have thought that the pair would have sailed into Day 3 without breaking sweat, but Yunis had other ideas. Ben Vinson raised to 3,500 in first position, Mohsin Charania three-bet to 8,000, also in early position, before Yunis cold-four bet for 18,000 in middle position. Vinson stepped aside, Charania five-bet, Yunis six-bet for everything, and Charania was wondering if somebody was going to wake him up and tell him that it was all a dream. Charania had the preflop nuts – – and Yunis had the dominated . Five community cards later and Charania was the new chip leader with 380,000 chips and Yunis was down, and a few hands later, out!

When you have a man with an aura like Phil Ivey, then you need to get him on your TV table. It’s just a shame that the man was eliminated in the very first hand that he played after the crew announced lights, camera and action!

Team PokerStars Pros Barry Greenstein and Humberto Brenes left the party and Brits Chris Brammer and Ben Vinson started to grow their chip stacks. Brammer doubled through Team PokerStars Pro Dario Minieri and Vinson just ground away on a table with Annette Obrestad and Mohsin Charania.

In the depths of the last level Dario Minieri, Liv Boeree, and Fabrice Soulier were eliminated and when the final count came in 130 players left to play poker on Day 3.

End of Day 2 Top 10 Chip Counts

Day 3 action begins at 1200 CET (0300 PDT) and the PokerNews Live Reporting Team will be there to bring you all the action as the field heads toward the money bubble.

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April 25 2012, Donnie Peters

The PokerStars and Monte-Carlo® Casino European Poker Tour Super High Roller played down to a champion on Wednesday. The man walking away with the title and “1.64 million first-place prize was start-of-the-day chip leader Justin Bonomo.

Bonomo was one of the seven players to re-enter this event, firing in two bullets worth “100,000 each. He was the only one of the seven to cash, and his move to re-enter ultimately proved to be correct. At the start of the day, Bonomo held over 40 percent of the chips in play at the final table. He never lost the lead, eliminating five players en route to victory.

The first player eliminated on the day was the short-stacked Eugene Katchalov, one of four Team PokerStars Pros to make the final table. He fell in eighth place to set the tournament on the official money bubble.

The bubble was a very large one, with the difference between cashing and not a whopping “310,000. Falling in seventh place was 2010 World Series of Poker Main Event champion Jonathan Duhamel after he ran into the pocket aces of Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier.

With the blinds at 15,000/30,000/4,000, Grospellier raised to 60,000 from the hijack seat. Duhamel reraised all in from the small blind and Grospellier quickly called after Daniel Negreanu folded from the big blind. Grospellier rolled over the and Duhamel’s was in bad shape. Duhamel was drawing dead on the turn and headed out the door empty-handed.

Shortly after Duhamel’s exit burst the bubble, Negreanu was all in preflop with against Bonomo’s pocket tens. The dealer flopped Bonomo a set of tens, and he held from there to send Negreanu out the door in sixth place.

Fifth place belonged to Japan’s Masa Kagawa as he fell at the hands of both Bonomo and Tobias Reinkemeier. In a three-way all-in pot, Reinkemeier held , Bonomo and Kagawa . The board ran out to chop Kagawa out of the tournament.

Patrik Antonius was eliminated in fourth place after he stuck the last of his chips in on a board with . His hand was second best to Bonomo’s , giving Bonomo a massive chip lead with only Reinkemeier and Grospellier in his way.

Grospellier was the third-place finisher when he jammed a combo draw against Bonomo’s top pair and failed to get there, setting up the heads-up battle between Reinkemeier and Bonomo. When the match began, Bonomo had a massive advantage with 9.58 million chips to Reinkemeier’s 1.675 million. From there, things didn’t last too long.

On the final hand, Reinkemeier opened the button to 125,000 with the blinds at 25,000/50,000/5,000. Bonomo three-bet to 350,000, and Reinkemeier moved all in for around 1.5 million. Bonomo called and tabled the . Reinkemeier held the .
The flop came down and Bonomo took the lead with top pair. The turn left Reinkemeier needing a four on the river to double up and stay alive. The dealer burned one final time and then dealt the on the river. Reinkemeier had missed and was eliminated in second place.

Before this win, Bonomo’s largest score came in 2009 when he took fifth in the WSOP’s $40,000 No-Limit Hold’em event for $413,165. When we wrote Bonomo’s bio, we said that if he cashed, he’d eclipse the $3 million mark for live tournament cashes. Not only has he done that, but he has surpassed the $5 million mark, as well, and scored the second major title of his career.

Final Table Payouts

Our very own Lynn Gilmartin spoke with Bonomo table side after his victory.

PokerNews is not done here from the EPT Grand Final, so be sure to follow along with our coverage of the Main Event over the next several days.

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