Latest Deauville Post

The bean-counters have just emerged from the safe brandishing the full list of payouts from EPT Deauville. There were 645 players over the two days, generating a prize pool of €3,096,000, of which €851,000 will go to the winner. Bien. Not so bien was the sight moments ago of Luca...more

Alfonso Amendola, who normally sports full western attire at EPTs complete with gallon hat, cowboy shirt and a thick cigar, just helped Polish player Pawel Chmiel on his way to the chip lead. Amendola made it 975 from under-the-gun and got two callers, one of which was Chmiel, a...more

I don't know much French, but I do know this: "Tapie!" is "All in!" and "Ooo la la!" is just about anything from: [EXPLETIVE REMOVED] to [EXPLETIVE REMOVED] to "Look at those fireworks, aren't they nice." Moments ago, all of those words, and all of those definitions, fireworks excluded, came...more

"Bang! Madonna! Bravo." Those three words just summed up Francesco Cirianni's afternoon. The bang was the sound of him moving all-in; the 'Madonna!' on seeing the call and the hand he was up against, and the 'Bravo!' a sporting salute when his opponent's K-J easily manoeuvred passed his own...more

Andrea Benelli grew accustomed to being near the centre of attention when he made the final table in Warsaw late last year, earning €45,745 for his seventh place there, a table that also featured Dario Minieri. This afternoon, Benelli found himself again on Minieri's table and again centre of attention....more

If you're going to have only three chips, it's as well to make sure they're either grey or green. The grey chip, worth 5,000, didn't feature on day 1A and confused counters when it appeared in starting stacks this afternoon. On the first sweep of the room it seemed as...more

We mentioned Julian Thew earlier, referring to him as the man who sent Greg Raymer to the rail in minutes the last time the EPT stopped by in Deauville. Thew was no fluke and was on his way to winning an EPT event himself, as well as others across...more

The board read Kh-Js-5h-Jd-8c and Dave "Devilfish" Ulliott had bet 15,000, leaving himself just a few grand behind. His young opponent, Martins Adeniya, had the decision to make, facing down the fish in an inter-generational hand spanning decades. Aside from being a below average lounge singer, as demonstrated yesterday...more

Dario Minieri has just been coolered out of this tournament in a fairly miserable battle of the blinds for the Team PokerStars Pro. Michael Fratty made up Minieri's big blind and called when the Italian made it 500 to go. The flop came J-Q-10, with two hearts. This must have...more

With two levels played you can now find a selection of the latest chip counts on the chip count page which will be updated throughout the day. One player who made it through Day 1A was Canadian Isabelle Mercier, bagging up 48,000 late yesterday. A good day at the...more

A quick spin around the tournament floor yielded a handful of news nuggets from the end of level two. From the Department of Bust-Outs: Antony Lellouche, Bruno "Kool Shen" Lopes, and Andy Black are early fallers. From the Double Up Department: "I was up to 24K in the first level."...more

You fly all the way from the United States for a seat by the Normandy coast and you end up sitting next to your roommate. Such was the story for Brandon Schaefer and Carl Olson, room-mates from the University of Washington in Seattle, who qualified at PokerStars for EPT Deauville...more

While Dario Minieri lost half of his stack back in level one his tablemates are proving to be running hot and cold. From the hot tap Soren Kongsgaard just flushed away Jean Luc Boulay, his nines no match for Kongsgaard's aces. Then from the cold tap Michael Fratty watches...more

When a player moves all in, shrugs his shoulders and stands up preparing to leave, he's usually not concealing the nuts. But such was the case for Olaf De Zeeuw, the Dutch player on table 12, who had witnessed at close quarters the car crash sevens-versus-aces hand described below, and...more

Maybe it's just the sense of occasion but Deauville always provides a shock hand to set the adrenaline rushing in the first half hour of play. Two years ago it was Julian Thew, a then future EPT winner, who busted World Champion and Team PokerStars Pro Greg Raymer within...more