Level: 17
Blinds: 20,000/40,000
Ante: 5,000
2015 PokerStars and Monte-Carlo® Casino EPT Grand Final
€100,000 Super High Roller
Day: 3
Event Info
Final Results
Event Info
Level Info
2015 PokerStars and Monte-Carlo® Casino EPT Grand Final
Buy-in
€98,000
Prize Pool
€6,888,420
Entries
71
Level
26
Blinds
150,000 / 300,000
Ante
50,000
At 12:30 p.m. local time, the final table of the 2015 PokerStars and Monte-Carlo® Casino European Poker Tour Grand Final €100,000 Super High Roller will commence. Cards-up coverage will be on a one-hour delay, starting at 1:30 p.m. local time, and PokerNews.com won't spoil anything for you. We will be providing hand-for-hand coverage, though.
The chip leader going in is Italy's Dario Sammartino, who won a huge pot of Ole Schemion late last night as the money bubble neared. It was a somewhat controversial hand, but in the end all the chips went his way and Schemion was left crippled, only to bust to Erik Seidel two hands later.
Eight players remain with Scott Seiver as the short stack. Seiver will start with 12 big blinds, while Polish superstar Dzmitry Urbanovich has 14 big blinds to start with.
The remaining eight players are guaranteed €261,800, with €2,015,000 up top, and the first level to be played is Level 17 (20,000/40,000, with a 5,000 ante). Stay tuned for the coverage and we'll see who comes out on top.
Poland's Dzmitry Urbanovich is quite the talk of the town these days, and he's certainly doing all that he can to make it stay that way. You see, Urbanovich cashed in and final tabled six events at the recent European Poker Tour Malta festival. Of those, he won four, including the €25,500 High Roller for €572,300.
Now, he finds himself at the final table of this EPT Grand Final €100,000 Super High Roller, albeit seventh in chips with some work to do. Nevertheless, Urbanovich made his way to the final eight after skipping Day 1 entirely. He was busy in another event and opted to wait to buy in until just before the start of Day 2. He quickly got to work building a stack, and now he's earned the second best live tournament result of his career, with a chance at even more.
Urbanovich is currently third on Poland's all-time money list, but with this result he'll be moving past Marcin Horecki and into second place behind Dominik Panka. If he can maneuver his way to the final two in this event, Urbanovich will pass Panka and claim the country's top spot.
With all of the success Urbanovich has found lately, he has a lot of interested eyes watching him. Some want to see if he's just running super hot, while others are already referring to him as the next Ole Schemion. Whatever your view, you can't deny that Urbanovich's success is fun and exciting, and as of right now it doesn't look like he plans on slowing down.
Young Austrian Thomas Muehloecker will enter the final table third in chips, but he's bunched in a trio with Max Altergott and Erik Seidel who contain just about the same amount.
Prior to September 2013, Muehloecker had a handful of cashes in live tournaments, but it wasn't until that year's European Poker Tour Barcelona festival that he made a name for himself. The event was the €10,300 High Roller, and Muehloecker was one of the two final players. His opponent? None other than Daniel Negreanu.
In that event, all eyes were on "Kid Poker." Negreanu had a massive chip lead going into heads-up play and it seemed like nothing more than a formality that he would defeat Muehloecker en route to another poker title. Muehloecker had other plans, though, and battled back to earn the €390,700 top prize and more than double his live tournament earnings at the time.
Since then, Muehloecker has continued cashing in big events all over the globe. From different countries in Europe, Las Vegas, and even all the way Down Under in Australia, Muehloecker has put together nearly $1.8 million in earnings and he'll be adding at least another €261,800 to that here. Previously this year, he's cashed in the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Main Event and $25,500 High Roller, the Aussie Millions $25,000 Challenge, and the EPT Malta €10,300 High Roller.
Muehloecker currently ranks No. 1 on Austria's all-time money list and will be widening the gap over Josef Klinger in second place. The only question is, by how much?
Where does one even start with Erik Seidel?
The elder statesman of this final table boasts nearly $22 million in live tournament earnings, 11 cashes in events with a buy-in of €50,000 or higher, eight World Series of Poker gold bracelets, and one World Poker Tour title. He's also ranked fifth on poker's all-time money list and already earned over $1 million this year.
Did we also mention he's a member of the Poker Hall of Fame, too?
Born in New York City in 1959, Seidel always had a gifted mind for games of all kinds. He took up backgammon while in college and soon dropped out to pursue a professional career playing the game. New York’s famous Mayfair Club was like a second home to Seidel, and there he was able to hone his skills against some of the best players around.
Seidel traveled around playing backgammon tournaments for about eight years before making some forays into the stock market. With more and more people indulging in poker at the Mayfair Club, Seidel decided to give it a shot. Poker wasn't his only source of income, though, as Seidel took up a regular job as a stockbroker with much more of a secure income. But, the security of a regular paycheck went out the window in 1987 when the stock market crashed and Seidel lost his job. Luckily, he still had poker, and in 1988 he took second place in the WSOP Main Event for $280,000 to ignite his spectacular career.
It's really of no surprise that Seidel has made his way to this marquee final table, but we can't take away from him just how impressive his accomplishments are time and time again. While many of poker's "older generation" seem to be falling by the wayside, Seidel continues to lock horns with the best young stars in the game and prove that age is certainly no factor for him.
A calm, cool demeanor, 2.17 million in chips, and a boat load of experience give Seidel just as much of a chance as anyone to win this event. We wouldn't bet against the "old timer."
There is no soft spot at this final table, and Igor Kurganov is another very tough competitor remaining. Although he's listed as Russian, everyone considers Kurganov a part of "Team Germany." He's also widely considered as one of the most brilliant tournament poker minds out there today, and he can back that up with over $8.2 million in live tournament earnings.
All of those winnings are nice, but it's when you examine them further that you really see just how well Kurganov performs at the European Poker Tour Grand Final. He has six cashes from this festival, with the earliest coming in 2011 when he took second in the €10,300 Turbo High Roller for €123,000 in Madrid. In 2012, he amplified his EPT Grand Final winnings in a big way by capturing the title and first place in the €25,500 High Roller to the tune of €1.08 million.
In 2013's stop, Kurganov placed 74th in the Main Event for €16,000 and seventh in the €25,500 High Roller for €154,700. He followed those results up the next year with two more — first taking third in this event, the €100,000 Super High Roller, for over €1.128 million and then cashing in 52nd place in the Main Event for €24,400.
All told, Kurganov has hauled in over €2.526 million from the EPT Grand Final.
Ranked No. 1 on Russia's all-time money list, Kurganov has cashed for no less than $1.8 million in the past three years. He'll be adding at least €261,800 to his tally in this event, but with the second biggest stack of 3.645 million, it's highly likely he'll finish in the top three and score much more. If anything will serve as his kryptonite, it could be the table draw he will have to deal with on Day 3.
Seated directly to Kurganov's left is defending champion Max Altergott, followed by the tough Fedor Holz. Specifically speaking to Altergott, he's a good friend of Kurganov, so some extra deceptiveness could be needed if Kurganov is going to outfox him. After all, Altergott will have the power of position. But, if this video is any indication, Kurganov has a plan of attack.
The second year this event was held, in 2013, it was won by a relatively unknown German player who was recording the first live tournament result of his poker career. That player was Max Altergott, an online high-stakes cash-game player, and he won that event for nearly €1.75 million after defeating Jason Mercier in heads-up play.
Since then, Altergott has become a regular in big buy-in poker tournaments, racking up over $3.6 million in live cashes. Of note, he scored a victory in the 2013 World Poker Tour Paris €15,000 High Roller for €181,440 and won the 2014 Aussie Millions $25,000 Challenge for AU$241,785. Altergott also took second in a WPT Alpha8 event for £350,000 in London and has cashed in a couple of ARIA high roller events.
You can regularly find Altergott hanging around with several other members of "Team Germany," such as Tobias Reinkemeier, Philipp Gruissem, Igor Kurganov, and Fabian Quoss, and he could prove to be the first player to win this event twice if he can come out on top here.
He will enter Day 3 fourth in chips with an average stack of 2.215 million.
After winning the 2014 World Championship of Online Poker Main Event for $1.3 million, Fedor Holz set some new, challenging goals for himself. When asked what those goals were in an interview with PokerNews, Holz responded, "I want to win a super high roller. I enjoy playing live tournaments and this would be the cherry on top of an awesome year."
The year may have turned to 2015, but Holz now finds himself in the mix at a super high roller final table with the chance at achieving one of his goals.
Prior to this event, the biggest live tournament cash for Holz came from a ninth-place finish in the recent European Poker Tour Malta Main Event for €60,290. Already earning much more than that here in this event, don't let the young, German baby face fool you. Holz can play with the best of them and he certainly has that killer instinct that all top poker players have.
With the average stack a little over 2.2 million, Holz will enter the third and final day of play with 1.65 million — good for sixth overall. He'll still have 41 big blinds to work with, and no one should count this kid out.
Dario Sammartino will be the chip leader when the final table commences on Saturday in Monaco. Already earning the biggest live poker result of his career, Sammartino won his entry to this event via a live satellite. With over a quarter of the chips in play, he's clearly put himself in the position to make his first shot count as much as possible.
When the event neared the money, Sammartino played the biggest pot of the tournament against another player yielding a big stack, Ole Schemion. You can read the details about the hand by clicking here, but whether you view the hand as a slow-roll, nit-roll, or tough decision for his tournament life on the bubble, Sammartino was pushed the pot after he made the call to see his stack skyrocket to the top of the leader board.
Prior to this cash, Sammartino's best live poker result was worth €95,000. That came when he took second in the 2013 Italian Poker Tour Sanremo Main Event. Despite that result, Sammartino's win as a part of Team Italy in the first-ever Global Poker Masters might just be his proudest accomplishment in the game. Whichever it is, Sammartino is certainly riding a lot of momentum lately and playing with a lot of confidence.
Coming into this event, Sammartino boasted a poker résumé with just shy of $1.3 million in live tournament earnings. He'll will have a lot of tough competition to battle with on Saturday, but the Italian might just be on the verge of a breakout performance on poker's largest stage.
Oh look, Scott Seiver has made another super high roller final table. And, like so many other times he's done so, he'll enter as the shortest stack left, this time bringing 470,000 to Day 3.
When the players reached the money, Seiver joked to a member of the PokerNews reporting staff that if you added up the total amount of chips he's cashed with in the last four super high roller events, he probably wouldn't have more than what the current average stack was. We did the math and it turns out Seiver's claim was very true.
At the time of making the money, there were nine players left, which made the average stack just over 1.972 million in chips. Seiver had 485,000. In the last three super high roller events he's cashed in — the 2015 Aussie Millions $250,000 Challenge, the 2015 Aussie Millions $100,000 Challenge, and the 2015 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure $100,000 Super High Roller — Seiver cashed with approximately 475,000, 545,000, and 405,000 in chips, respectively. The total of those four amounts are 1.91 million, putting him under the 1.972 million average when he cashed in this event.
With all of those results in these high-stakes events, Seiver is certainly no stranger to big buy-in tournament poker and big-time success. In fact, he holds one super high roller title from the 2013 PCA when he won the $100,000 Super High Roller for over $2 million. Besides that outstanding performance, Seiver has cashed in nine other open events that boast a buy-in of €50,000 or higher.
All told, Seiver's career live tournament earnings are nearly $15.2 million, not including the result he will finish with in this one. He won a World Series of Poker gold bracelet in 2008 for $755,891 and the World Poker Tour World Championship in 2011 for $1,618,344. Currently eighth on poker's all-time money list, Seiver's already won over $2 million in 2015 after coming off back-to-back years winning more than $4 million from live tournaments. Plus, he's the recent new No. 1 on the Global Poker Index, and this result is only going to help him solidify his position.
Sure, he's the short stack in the final eight, but Seiver has proven time and time again he knows what it takes to ladder up the pay scale despite the odds being stacked against him.