The final table of EPT Deauville promised so much. In the end it delivered on some of what we'd hoped for, but for much of the eleven-and-a-half-hours this day took it became a tactical duel, riddled with a mixture of caution and patience. For eventual winner Vadzim Kursevich it...more

Vadzim Kursevich now holds an enormous chip lead, staking his claim to the €875,000 EPT Deauville title. The Belarusian won a 17,540,000 pot crippling Vuong Than Trong in the process. Trong opened the button for 500,000 and Kursevich three-bet to 1,200,000 out of the small blind. Trong quickly moved all-in...more

Frenchman Bruno Jais has just been sent to the rail by Vuong Than Trong who reclaims the chip lead with a 11,700,000 stack. Jais, who has been playing an entertaining if not unorthodox game, opened the pot to 450,000 from the cut-off and was thee-bet to 1,050,000 by Than Trong...more

With just eight players remaining in the European Poker Tour Deauville main event, it's a Frenchman who holds the narrow lead as Paul Guichard bags up 5,955,000 after a speedy six-hour day at the tables. Luca Pagano meanwhile reaches a record-extending seventh EPT final table. Guichard, who began the...more

If not today then sometime soon, Nikolaus Teichert will ask himself, "Why did I make that call?" It's a question we've certainly been asking ourselves up on the stage behind the final table, just a heavy velvet curtain separating us from them. Perhaps he wanted to emulate Doyle Brunson, maybe...more

If Chris Brammer could have looked more gutted it would hard to imagine how. Paul Guichard had opened for 80,000 from the hijack, a standard action for the chip leader at this stage of the tournament, and was shoved on by Denis Cheremisin for around 400,000 from the button. In...more

It's difficult to write that Luca Pagano is leading EPT Deauville. He is and it should be easy; after all, we've written it countless times before. The trouble starts though when you try to be original, you just stare at the keyboard convinced you've cut and paste a previous...more

Table one 1 Olivier Rogez 2,668,000 2 Vuong Than Trong 871,000 3 Andre Corredoira 1,310,000 4 Paul Guichard 1,700,000 5 Sergey Baburin 438,000 6 Antonio Guerrero 519,000 7 Christopher Brammer 1,262,000 8 Kevin Vandersmissen 737,000 Table two 1 Marc Inizan 481,000 2 Luca Pagano 3,561,000 3 Bruno Jais 970,000 4...more

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a live one. Artem Litvinov, who we yesterday compared to Illya Kuryakin, is up to 900,000 after making a call for the majority of his chips with A♠7♠. It wasn't the hand but the manner of celebration that left both spectators and the majority of...more

He started the day as chip leader and he almost ended the day as chip leader. Martins Adeniya put in another top draw performance today but was thwarted to the lead in the dying minutes of the day, when his stack dropped below the million mark as across the...more

As always at this stage of a poker tournament the main event is slowly losing its dominance of the tournament room. As it shrinks, the eliminated players now entitled to line up at the pay-out desk, side events take on a greater role, vast sweeping things spread out across...more

The stories during this part of a tournament tend to be polarised: the players that bust and the stacks making a run at the chip lead. In some ways this is doing a disservice to all those grinders in between for they are the future heroes and villains of this...more

There was a point today when a colleague came to us to say that four of the top six players were British. It didn't seem right to blow our own trumpet, particularly when the movement at the top of the chip count page was so fluid through to the...more

At any EPT there are usually one or two tables rocking with laughter, or hearty conversation at the very least. These tables don't just magic themselves out of thin air, they're based on what we reporters like to call an 'instigator' - a player that we can usually rely...more

This time last year James Dempsey was celebrating his latest tournament win, a £200, 32 entry hold'em event, part of the January Sales tournaments at the Rendezvous casino in Brighton, England. Dempsey, who lives in Brighton, topped the lot to take home £2,560. It was the start of a...more

We found out a lot today. We found out how much money would be awarded in prize money and how many players would be competing for a share. And of course we found out how much would be awarded to the winner. What we didn't find out was who...more

They say that you should never judge a book by its cover but in most cases in poker you really can see what you're getting. You know what to expect when you find yourself sitting next to a young kid in a hoodie with Beats by Dre headphones wrapped round...more

Ari Engel is one of those interesting looking guys you see in a poker tournament, and he tends to be easy to spot. For one thing Engel tends to stand up a lot, something I thought was related to the size of his stack but which Engel himself puts...more

The sun shone on Deauville this morning as more than 330 players worked their way through registration and into the halls of the Deauville conference centre. It's a place that makes it clear from the start that it's used to the spotlight. Part of Casino Deauville (which itself is...more

Chris Brammer isn't a gregarious player at the table, he's almost always shelled up in a large pair of over-ear headphones, but in the other sense he's a certainly a lively player. High volume and high VPP, Brammer is often the player betting, raising and opening, behaviour which has no...more

Arnaud Mattern won his European Poker Tour title in Prague in 2007, his part being that of the quiet Frenchman in sensible clothes. It was the result that launched Mattern onto the international stage. Previous results were small yes, but perfectly formed, early evidence of Mattern's capacity to batter...more