Magician leads EPT Finale
April 15, 2008
After 3 days of play, Antonio 'The Magician' Esfandiari is leading the pack with 1.2M in chips at the European Poker Tour grand final in Monte Carlo.
There's 40 players remaining, all aiming for the massive € 2,020,000 ($US 3.1M) first prize.
Three members of Team PokerStars are still in contention for the EPT season 4 crown - Joe Hachem (214k), Luca Pagano (279k), and Raymond Rahme (133k).
Luca Pagano has set two records by making the money at this event. Firstly, it is his ninth EPT cash, giving him the outright lead for most ever cashes. Also his father, Claudio, is still alive in the tournament, making it the first time a father and son have cashed in an EPT event.
There's also 16 PokerStars online qualifiers still the hunt. That has to be some sort of record as well!
Once play got down to 81 players today, play went hand-for-hand for the money bubble. It turned out to be one of the longest bubble waits in tournament poker history, taking a mind numbing 2.5 hours for the next player to bust out and miss out on the cash. The unlucky punter was well known circuit pro Surinder Sunar busting out in 81st place.
A highlight of today's play was the first ever $100,000 'Stars of Poker' sit and go fearturing some of the Team PokerStars pros and online players. The gentleman of poker, Barry Greenstein walked away with the $50,000 first prize.
Play continues tomorrow when the 40 remaining players will play down to the final table.
The top ten starting chip stacks for day 4 are listed below.
| Place | Player | Chips |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Antonio Esfandiari | 1,198,000 |
| 2 | Robin Keston | 916,000 |
| 3 | Denes Kalo | 642,000 |
| 4 | Johnny Lodden | 623,000 |
| 5 | Maxime Villemure | 600,000 |
| 6 | Mostafa Belkhayate | 523,000 |
| 7 | Gerasimos Deres | 494,500 |
| 8 | Henrik Gwinner | 487,000 |
| 9 | David Shade Kruger | 486,500 |
| 10 | Thomas Boekhoff | 465,000 |
It's too late to play in this season of the European Poker Tour, but PokerStars is offering the best qualifying tournaments for July's World Series of Poker. Qualify for the world's biggest poker tournament at the world's biggest poker room - PokerStars!
