Remi Castaignon raised to 160,000 from the button, Joseph El Khoury and [Removed:4] both quickly folded in the blinds.
Noel Gaens raised to 160,000 from early position and Castaignon called from the cutoff. [Removed:4] made it 450,000 from the small blind, Gaens folded but Castaignon made the call to see our first three-bet pot.
The flop was and [Removed:4] bet 350,000 which Remi Castaignon made the call. The turn was and Rudelitz led out 1 million in chips with just 2 million behind and again the chip leader Castaignon made the call. The river is the and Rudelitz moved all in to make the pot hit the 6 million mark.
Castaignon tanked for almost five minutes having cut out the call but Walid Bou Habib called the clock after 5 minutes. Finally, Castaignon made the call for the biggest pot of the tournament.
Rudelitz turned over for top set, Castaignon didn't want to show but he was forced to flip for a huge hero call. Rudelitz has taken the chip lead as a result.
On the hand following Jeffrey Hakim's elimination, the table folded around to Robert Romeo who opened with a raise to 180,000 from the cutoff seat, good enough to claim the blinds and antes.
The next hand saw Remi Castaignon open-raising the minimum to 160,000 from the small blind, then Joseph El Khoury called from a seat over. The flop brought three big cards — — and both players checked fairly quickly. The turn was the and brought a couple of checks again.
The river then brought the . Castaignon checked once more, and when El Khoury took the invitation to push out a bet of 130,000 the chip leader let it go.
First hand saw Franck Kalfon open to 160,000 from the button and picked up the blinds and antes.
Joseph El Khoury raised to 190,000 preflop and Jeffrey Hakim, his compatriot, moved all in for 875,000 from the next seat. Suddenly, [Removed:4] reraised all in for 2,670,000 in the hijack and it was folded back to El Khoury. Finally, the latter of these folded pocket nines face up.
Hakim:
Rudelitz:
Hakim was in big trouble and the flop could only compound his problems coming . Hakim now needed perfect-perfect but the on the turn meant he was already walking out of the door. The river meant nothing and we're down to seven.
Welcome to Day 6, the final day of this year's PokerStars.fr European Poker Tour Deauville Main Event, where Frenchman Remi Castaignon carries a commanding lead to today's eight-handed final table.
A dominating Day 5 saw Castaignon knock out eight of the 15 players eliminated, including Cyril Andre (11th), Jean Pierre Petroli (10th), and Glen Cymbaluk (9th), to end the day with 9.9 million chips. That's getting close to three times what Walid Bou Habib has in second position, and also represents a little over 42% of the chips in play.
The preponderance of short stacks to begin Day 6 likely means we'll be seeing lots of action from the start today at the Casino Barrière de Deauville as the final chapters of the Season 9 EPT Deauville Main Event story are written. Scroll below for bios of all eight players at today's final table.
Join us at noon local time (CET) when play begins as we find out who among the 782 players who entered the event will be claiming the €770,000 first prize and title of EPT Champion.
It's not very often that a player arrives at the final table holding more than 40% of the chips in play, but insurance broker Remi Castaignon just accomplished this impressive feat with gusto, never losing his cool during a crucial Day 5 that saw him catching a few lucky breaks (including a massive KK vs AA suckout early during the day), eliminating several players in a row (including fellow countrymen Cyril André and Jean-Pierre Petroli) and displaying an overall excellent performance.
Hailing from a tiny village in the Pyrenées, Castaignon has been playing poker since 2007, mostly online tournaments and satellites for big live events. Reaching the final table in Deauville is his best result to date.
This is Noel Gaens’s second EPT, as he also competed in one of the first EPTs in Dortmund. He plays a whole lot of poker, but is by no means a professional, running his own building firm with a staff of 40. He considers poker a hobby but it's lucrative and he’s enjoyed a lot of cashes in his "career."
Gaens has been playing poker since 1995 and used to travel frequently to Germany in the early years because poker wasn’t on offer in Belgian casinos. However poker is now way more popular in Belgium and Gaens is a regular cash game player at the PokerStars-affiliated Casino de Namur.
On Day 2, Gaens tripled up (with trips over trips) and hasn't looked back since, although he admits he got lucky several times. Gaens says he isn't easily intimidated and isn't afraid of anyone at the final table. “I’m just going to play my own game,” he says.
When Walid Bou Habib first appeared on the scene back in 2008 he came close to making the final table. That 19th-place finish in the EPT Grand Final for €46,300 may have made him think it would be easy but it’s taken a further five years and Main Event cashes, including a very creditable 16th place at the PCA for $100,000, for that final table to appear. Understandably he’s thrilled.
“It’s a great pleasure, really, just to prove to myself that I can do it. It was always like a big wall that I could not cross. Now, I’m crossing it,” says Bou Habib, an engineer in food science and technology by day. The Lebanese "hobby" player is a serial online qualifier through PokerStars and has gone on to rack up $386,492 in live tournament cashes.
Seventh place will guarantee him a career largest score but given the number of short stacks left in, he’s in rude health to go significantly deeper than that as he currently sits in second place with 3,835,000. Bou Habib is married with two children (12 and 10).
French-speaking Robert Romeo started playing poker around 2007, first with friends and then online. Initially, he played just for fun but, as time went by, he started taking it more seriously.
This is his first EPT but he didn't have to spend much to enter, having qualified on PokerStars in a €4 rebuy satellite! ”And I didn't take any rebuys, just the add-on”, he adds. Married with four children, Robert plans to buy a house and shower his family with presents if he wins. He says also that a victory would cause him seriously to consider taking up poker as a second job.
![[user76023]](/img/avatars/avatar.svg){kind=avatar}
and [Removed:4] bet 350,000 which Remi Castaignon made the call. The turn was 
and Rudelitz led out 1 million in chips with just 2 million behind and again the chip leader Castaignon made the call. The river is the 
and Rudelitz moved all in to make the pot hit the 6 million mark.
for top set, Castaignon didn't want to show but he was forced to flip 
for a huge hero call. Rudelitz has taken the chip lead as a result.
— and both players checked fairly quickly. The turn was the 
and brought a couple of checks again.
. Castaignon checked once more, and when El Khoury took the invitation to push out a bet of 130,000 the chip leader let it go.
. Hakim now needed perfect-perfect but the 
on the turn meant he was already walking out of the door. The 
river meant nothing and we're down to seven.
