EPT Paris: Alan Goasdoue Wins Largest-Ever FPS Main Event

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Feb 21, 2023 3 min read Last updated Apr 27, 2023

The record-breaking €1,100 France Poker Series (FPS) Paris Main Event wrapped up after a relatively short Day 4 that saw Alan Goasdoue defeating fellow Frenchman Jean-Luc Labryga after a brief heads-up battle to take home the shimmering silver trophy and €287,830.

Goasdoue, a 23-year-old who has been playing poker since he was 18 and professionally for the last five months, had just $39,562 in Hendon Mob earnings when he decided to play the European Poker Tour (EPT) Paris festival after satelliting into the FPS Main.

€1,100 FPS Paris Main Event Final Table Results

"Even though I came into today's final with the last stack, I stayed focused"

Despite entering the day as the shortest stack, Goasdoue managed to ladder past several players — including fellow French natives Thibault Reverdito (7th - €44,990) and Roger Taieb (4th - €98,870) and fellow Europeans Oleksii Natoptanyi (6th - €58,490), Christopher Dowling (5th - €76,050) and Elias Fisz (3rd - €128,530) — before ultimately overcoming start-of-day chip leader Labryga.

“I'm pretty calm right now," Goasdoue said in a winner's interview. "Everything has been going well for me since the beginning of the tournament and I've always managed to survive with double-up when I was dominated.

Even though I came into today's final with the last stack, I stayed focused. I figured out how my heads-up opponent was playing and I was also lucky to win."

Final Table Action

The FPS Paris Main Event, one of the first events to kick off the inaugural EPT Paris stop, attracted a massive 2,071 runners and a prize pool of €1,988,160. The field likely would have been even larger if not for capacity limitations at the Hyatt Regency Paris Etoile.

Seven players returned to finish out the final table on Day 4 after the late-night elimination of Vasyl Zabrodskyy, whose pocket sixes couldn't hold up against the eventual runner-up's ace-jack.

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Labryga was a Day 1 chip leader before entering Day 4 with the biggest stack and his run-good was just beginning. In the first level of play, Labryga got it in on the flop with just ace-high against the top pair of Reverdito, but a runner-runner straight sent Reverdito to the rail in seventh place.

After the respective eliminations of Natoptanyi and Dowling, Labryga picked up aces to be far in front of the nines of Taieb, who had playfully teased Labryga throughout the final table before his fourth-place exit.

Goasdoue stayed quiet throughout most of the day's action but that changed when he picked up pocket nines and looked up a shove by Fisz with ace-eight, who couldn't improve to fall in third and set up a French heads-up battle.

Labryga and Goasdoue, the oldest and youngest players at the final table, entered heads-up play nearly even in chips but Goasdoue quickly took a lead after making a few hands, including two full houses. Labryga was down to a short stack when he open-jammed on the button holding ace-eight and Goasdoue looked him up with nines, which proved to be the holding of the day as they once again held up to earn Goasdoue the victory.

The career-best score marked the PokerStars qualifier's first major live score just a few months after transitioning from online poker.

"My goal was to play more live events in the future," said Goasdoue. "I've known for a long time that I'm capable of a big performance. Now I've ticked the box, as they say! I said at the beginning of the tournament that I was going to put one bullet the FPS and win, then one bullet in the EPT (Main Event) and win. So I'm halfway there!”

Connor Richards is an Editor & Live Reporter for PokerNews and host of the Life Outside Poker podcast. Connor has been nominated for two Global Poker Awards for his writing.

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