2012 EPT Sanremo Main Event Final Table Determined
Canadian Jason Lavallee is just ahead of French pro Ludovic Lacay as the EPT Sanremo Main Event goes into its final day. Play resumes at 3pm with an "as live" web broadcast on EPTLive.com from 4pm. See the PokerStars blog wrap for full report.
1 Ludovic Lacay France 5,366,000 2 Jason Tompkins Ireland 3,605,000 3 Adrian Piasecki Poland PokerStars qualifier 2,045,000 4 Micah Raskin USA 1,550,000 5 Jason Lavallee Canada PokerStars qualifier 5,545,000 6 Ismael Bojang Germany 2,845,000 7 Angelo Recchia Italy 1,755,000 8 Artem Litvinov Russia 800,000
A total of 797 players from 52 countries entered EPT9 Sanremo generating a total prize pool of €3,865,450. The winner will get €800,000 as well as the champion's trophy and a stunning Slyde watch worth more than €5,000 from luxury Swiss brand HD3, the Official Watch Sponsor for EPT9 Main Events. The Official Payment Provider Sponsor of EPT Season 9 is paysafecard, a prepaid payment solution whereby people exchange cash for paysafecard vouchers to use online. The EPT Sanremo Festival runs October 3 - 11, 2012 at Casino Sanremo.
EPT9 SANREMO FINAL TABLE PLAYER PROFILES
Seat 1: Ludovic Lacay, 27, Toulouse, France - 5,366,000 Lacay has been playing EPTs since Season 4 and has already cashed in nine Main Events, including eighth at EPT5 Warsaw for € 32,843 and 21st at the EPT6 Grand Final for €52,000.
Like many other players, the 27-year-old got into online poker after enjoying success in the video game world where he played for one of the best French “Counter Strike” teams. Known as an aggressive poker player, Lacay first came to prominence in 2007 when he was runner-up in the WPT Spanish Championship for €295,200. But his best live cash to date was 16th place in the 2009 WSOP Main Event for $500,557, a result that also put him in the spotlight outside Europe. Although he has yet to win a major title, he is considered one of the best players in France (11th in the All Time Money List) and has already accrued $2 million in live tournament winnings.
Seat 2: Jason Tompkins, 27, Kildare, Ireland - 3,605,000 Jason Tompkins has been among the chip leaders in Sanremo since day one, and has now become the first Irish player to reach an EPT main event final table since Mick Graydon in Deauville last season. Ireland is still searching for its first EPT champion and Tompkins has been followed throughout this event by numerous supporters on Irish poker forums and via Twitter. Known online as blaaaaaah666, Tompkins actually prefers live poker and has cashes dating from 2007. He has made numerous final tables, including one of the UKIPT, and his biggest score was sixth place finish in the World Series this summer, worth $86,000.
Seat 3: Adrian Piasecki, 23, Katowice, Poland, PokerStars qualifier - 2,045,000 Piasecki may well be new to playing live poker, having only played “a few” €1,000 events but he says he’s warming up to playing live. Given that he’s guaranteed himself at least €65,450 here in Sanremo, that should come as little surprise. He certainly seems a man of understatement, admitting that poker was his only way of making money but drawing the line at calling himself a professional player. Piasecki currently lives with his parents but said that situation is likely to change following this deep run. “The money I win here tomorrow, it will help me to stand on my own feet,” said Piasecki, who comes into the tomorrow’s final table fifth in chips.
Seat 4: Micah Raskin, 44, New York, USA – 1,550,000 Micah Raskin is a 44-year-old businessman from New York, USA, who has become a regular fixture on the international poker circuit. He has amassed more than $1.1m in live tournament winnings in a relatively brief career at the tables, and is now at his first EPT final table. He grew up in Queens, New York, where he learnt poker from his father, Tommy, playing in the basement of the family home with his twin brothers. The twins - Logan and Roger - are here in Sanremo and have been supporting Raskin from the rail throughout the tournament.
Seat 5: Jason Lavallee, 26, Montreal, Quebec - PokerStars qualifier - 5,545,000 Jason Lavallee is a 26-year old professional poker player from Montreal, Quebec. Though he generally plays a mixture of both tournaments and cash games, Lavallee has heightened his focus on tournament play as of late. Lavallee had his first major tournament cash back in 2007, but he earned his greatest tournament cash by finishing in 2nd place in the $15,000 World Poker Tour Championship event at Festa al Lago for $795,150. Since then Lavallee has been able to bring his total tournament winnings up to an impressive $1,055,312. Winning today will give Lavallee the biggest tournament score of his life and he is in a good position to do so as he is the biggest stack at the table.
Seat 6: Ismael Bojang, 23, Hamburg, Germany - 2,845,000 Bojang, 23, has been playing poker for five years now. A former Economics student at Göttingen University, Bojang is mainly a live cash and tournament player and plays very little online. This he puts down to the entertainment value. It’s more fun to play live, he says, with fewer distractions. Living in Hamburg, he regularly travels to France and Austria to play Omaha cash games.
Despite this he still plays the occasional PokerStars tournament on a Sunday but it’s live poker that has brought him the most success, including four cashes at this year’s WSOP. To date his live tournament earnings amount to nearly $400,000.
Seat 7: Angelo Recchia, 29, Brindisi, Italy - 1,755,000 Recchia hails from San Vito dei Normanni, Brindisi and first started playing poker six years ago in online heads up SNGs and MTTs. His first live experience was in 2010 competing in the PokerStars.it All Stars Of Poke; he finished sixth for €12,000. Recchia graduated in linguistics, then did military service and worked as a barman all around Italy before becoming a poker pro. His best live result to date was winning a €1,000 IPT Sanremo side event in January for €32,000. He also has several other smaller cashes to his name from the PCA, WSOP and Eureka Poker Tour. Online, he came fifth in the PokerStars.it Sunday Special for almost €10,500 and third in the PokerStars.it Sunday High Roller for around €6,500.
Seat 8: Artem "roi kin23" Litvinov, 38, St Petersburg, Russia - 800,000 Russian player Artem Litvinov is an EPT regular with five Main Event cashes to his name already, including 16th at EPT8 Deauville for €26,000. Litvinov works in marketing but plays a lot of high stakes poker, both live and online. He first started playing poker about seven years ago, His best result to date was in April when he outlasted players such as Phil Ivey, Alex Bilokur and Martin Finger to finish fifth in the PokerStars and Monte-Carlo®Casino EPT Grand Final High Roller for €216,000. His live tournament winnings already total nearly $500,000 – but would have been €122,960 more if he hadn’t bubbled the Super High Roller at EPT Barcelona. Online, he also has a string of tidy results including third in a $2k SCOOP NL event for $206,784 and third in a WCOOP event for $144,808.
