Isabelle Mercier: heading to the EPT Deauville final table

First things first, the final table for tomorrow's EPT French Open in Deauville will feature the following:

Ram Vaswani (Eng) 1,191,500
Isabelle Mercier (Can) 428,000
Mark Boudewijn (Hol) 911,500
Kirill Gerasimov (Rus) 215,000
Patric Martensson (Swe) 291,000
Stuart Nash (Eng) 125,500
Theo Jorgensen (Den) 809,500
Mats Iremark (Swe) 397,000

They will play for the following money:

1 - €480.000 (plus €10,000 buy-in into EPT Grand final in Monte Carlo)
2 - €259.000
3 - €155.300
4 - €118.500
5 - €97.700
6 - €76.800
7 - €60.800
8 - €43.500
This is how they got to where they are now:

Day two wrap

We began day two with a glance at the tournament situation; there were 100 players in the mix and a lot of money up for grabs.

At the top was the PokerStars qualifier Jerome Douieb, who had tripled up late in the day to catapult to the top of the list. We learnt more about the man known online as Chemovs here.

Chemovs wasn't the only qualifier in the mix; there were plenty more we introduced here.

One of those, named Ken Johnson, from Eagle Mountain, Utah, was on the move, tearing up the TV table alongside Ram Vaswani. His story is here.

He was up against two massive stacks in the field. Both Vaswani and Jon "Texas" Hewston were moving and shaking.

It was soon bubble time and, as every tournament reporter will tell you, it's harsh when it bursts. Jen Mason, who has reported on more poker tournaments than most, was this time the subject of the bubble story.

PokerStars was still well represented at this point, although there were some mighty stacks still. Click here for a gallery of qualifiers and leaders.

Then it all began to get a bit brutal. Players began falling like flies.

Until we were down to ten.

And then nine. Although it took some time.

After another hour or so, it was down to the final eight when Isabelle Mercier showed no mercy to Micky Wernick and the European rankings winner for 2005 was out on the television bubble.