The buy-in for the Main Event was lowered to £3,500 in Season 3, which helped boost attendance as 398 players took to the felt and created a prize pool of £1,393,000. The event attracted some heavy hitters in the poker world including Shannon Shorr (21st - £6,000), Neil Channing (13th - £10,000) and Chad Brown (5th - £58,600), but after three days of intense action it was the lovely Victoria Coren that walked away with the title and £500,000 first-place prize. She also became the first female to win an EPT title.
The London-based Coren was actually fairly well known on the UK circuit. At the age of 15 she won a competition to write a weekly newspaper column, something she continues to this day as author of a poker column in The Guardian. She also appeared on Late Night Poker, which was the first TV show to reveal the hole cards of players.
Since her big win, Coren has continued to travel the poker circuit as a Team PokerStars Pro. In April 2012, Coren added a second EPT title to her résumé by winning the €5,000 Heads-Up No Limit Hold’em at the Grand Final for €58,900. Most recently, she finished sixth in the £10,000 High Roller at the EPT/UKIPT London for £67,130 back in March.
Coren is in action today and looking to become the first two-time EPT Main Event champion.
Poker players live for the moment, not for tomorrow. After all it never rains in the poker world, one that was formed in the desert, in rooms with no windows. But should it be this way? The PokerStars Blog talks investigates.
We missed the action, but we do know that Finger got his last 16,000 all in on the turn with a board reading . Daniel Weinman called him holding the nuts with the , and Finger was drawing to a chop with the . The river was not the king Finger needed and he feel just short of the second break of the day.
Vanessa Rousso is bouncing back up quickly. she just knocked out Paris Dedes. Dedes had bet 6,250 on the turn of a only for the Team PokerStars Pro to move all in. Dedes had about 15,000 behind and found himself priced into to call.
Nicolas Levi raised to 400 from UTG and was called by Georgios Karakousis, Paul Foltyn and Majid Iqbal. The flop was checked to Levi who bet 900, Karakousis made the call, Foltyn folded and Iqbal called.
The turn was the and this time Iqbal and Levi checked to Karakousis who bet 1,200, Iqbal then check-raised to 2,500 and Levi folded. Karakousis quickly called.
The river was the and both players checked, Karakousis tabled and it proved to still be good.
Kuljinder Sidhu opened for 650 from the under-the-gun position and Team PokerStars Pro Vanessa Rousso made the call. The cutoff came along, as did the button and big blind, and it was five-way action to the flop. Two checks put action on Rousso and she bet 2,000. Action folded back to Sidhu and he woke up with a check-raise to 5,000.
Rousso ended up making the call, the dealer burned and turned the , and Sidhu led out for another 5,000. Rousso took stock of her stack before announcing that she was all in for 16,125. Sidhu snap-called.
Sidhu:
Rousso:
Rousso made a flush on the turn to crack Sidhu's kings, but a club on the river would give Sidhu a bigger flush. Fortunately for Rousso that didn't happen as the harmless peeled off.