April 26 2012, Donnie Peters

Day 1b of the PokerStars and Monte-Carlo® Casino European Poker Tour Grand Final Main Event is in the books after the second and last starting flight ran through the first eight levels of the tournament. There were 394 players in action on Thursday, bringing the total of this year’s field to 665. Nicolas Yunis ended the day with the most chips in the room – a stack of 191,700.

On Day 1a, Martin Kabrhel bagged up the most chips with 167,800. On Day 1b, Yunis along with Ivan Kudriavtcev and Andoni Larrabe Sánchez finished with more chips to put Kabrhel in fourth place overall heading into Day 2. Yunis was a steady climber throughout the day and there wasn’t a single stand-out pot that the Live Reporting Team saw from him that vaulted him into the lead. Rather, a gradual progression of hands earned him the No. 1 overall spot.

Plenty of notable players were in the mix on Day 1b including those representing Team PokerStars Pro. Ana Marquez, Fatima Moreira De Melo, Humberto Brenes, Pius Heinz, Marcel Luske and Jason Mercier all had successful days on the felt. Lex Veldhuis, Victoria Coren, Jonathan Duhamel and Eugene Katchalov however, were all eliminated on the day.

Other well-known faces were in the field and ended up bagging up decent stacks, including Tom Marchese, Stephen Chidwick, Erik Seidel, Annette Obrestad and Maria Ho.

End of Day 1b Chip Counts

Day 2 will commence at 1200 CET tomorrow and PokerNews will be back in action firing away the updates as the players fire in their chips. Be sure to join us then.

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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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