EPT: Luca Pagano aan finaletafel Deauville

Team PokerStars Pro en EPT-legende Luca Pagano heeft het weer voor elkaar. Bij de EPT Deauville neemt hij vandaag plaats aan zijn zevende EPT Main Event finaletafel. Chipleader is de Franse qualifier Paul Guichard. Check hier de chipcounts en profielen van de finalisten.

De finaletafel van de EPT Deauville begint vanmiddag rond 12:45u. Vijf Fransen, een Wit-Rus, een Italiaan en een Ier gaan uitvechten wie er met de hoofdprijs van €875.000 vandoor gaat. Voor Luca Pagano zou een droom uitkomen als hij het toernooi op zijn naam zou schrijven. De Italiaan is sinds EPT seizoen 1 (inmiddels zitten we in jaargang 8) een EPT-regular en al net zolang is hij Team PokerStars Pro.

Pagano heeft wel wat werk te verrichten, getuige de chipcounts aan de start van de FT:

Paul Guichard, France PokerStars qualifier .fr 5,955,000
Vadzim Kursevich, Belarus 5,670,000
Olivier Rogez, France 4,415,000
Bruno Jais, France PokerStars qualifier .fr 3,450,000
Vuong Than Trong, France 2,570,000
Luca Pagano, Italy Team PokerStars Pro 2,010,000
Yorane Kerignard, France 1,680,000
Mick Graydon, Ireland PokerStars qualifier 960,000

Spelersprofielen
Met dank aan het PokerStars Mediateam hieronder de spelersprofielen van de finalisten (in het Engels):

Seat 1: Bruno “bebesse1” Jais, 49, Paris – PokerStars qualifier.fr – 3,450,000
Manager of a Paris PR agency, Jais has been playing poker for nearly 20 years including annual trips – since 2002 – to compete in the World Series in Las Vegas. He plays both cash games and live tournaments and, occasionally, online. His favourite game is PLO8. Jais actually qualified thanks to a miss-click. He was planning to compete in a €10 tournament on PokerStars.fr but accidentally registered for a €500 satellite to Deauville instead – and he only had a €501 bankroll! Besides poker, Bruno devotes much time to golf and his family.

Seat 2: Mick Graydon, 26, Dublin, Ireland – 960,000
Although his friend Team PokerStars Pro Jude ‘j.thaddeus’ Ainsworth may be the better known Irishman, Mick Graydon is certainly no slouch at the poker table; the $210,107 he’s won in live tournaments is dwarfed by the $1,126,450 he’s won in online tournaments at PokerStars under the name ‘BIGMICKG’. Graydon was the first player in Ireland to achieve Supernova Elite status, a testimony to his discipline and skill at the tables, although he’s since embraced multi- rather than single-table tournaments.

“I used to play sit-and-gos but I made the transition to tournaments two years ago. I’ve played every EPT this season. It’s brilliant to make the final table. It’s why we play poker,” said Graydon, who was unlucky enough to lose with kings to Ronny Kaiser’s ace-king for the chip lead at EPT Tallinn. Kaiser went on to win the event and €275,000 while Graydon bust in 24th for €7,700. The online qualifier is guaranteed at least €67,200 here at EPT Deauville, his third cash of the season, but with a wealth of virtual experience it would be wrong to write off the short stack.

“Playing a lot online you learn how to play short stacked. I think I’m very strong at that so I won’t be making too many mistakes,” said Graydon.

Seat 3: Olivier Rogez, 34, Paris, France – 4,415,000
Rogez has never cashed in a tournament in his life, and won his seat in a €770 live satellite in Deauville a month ago. Rogez, 34, who runs an office cleaning business in Banlieu, Paris, is amazed he’s gone this deep – but is determined not to get flustered. He said: “I’m very very happy. I didn’t think I would get
this far. Today was a lot of stress but now I’m going to rest and come
back tomorrow calm and focused.”

Seat 4: Vuong Than Trong, 21, Paris, France – 2,570,000
Computer science student Than Trong discovered poker two years ago at a party with friends. He mainly plays mid-stakes online cash games using the screen-name “Canard_laque” but decided to take part in EPT Deauville on the eve of the tournament after being persuaded by his friend Basil Yaïche that he could do well. Throughout the event, he’s been supported by members of the Club Poker French poker forum as well as gaining valuable advice on tournament play from experts such as Flavian Guenan and Clement Thumy. If he does well at the EPT Deauville final, he plans to take part in a lot more live events, as well as continue with his university studies.

Seat 5: Vadzim “VadziMoney” Kursevich, 24, Minsk, Belarus – 5,670,000
Vadzim Kursevich turns 25 on Wednesday – and already has a lot to celebrate having reached the EPT Deauville final table second in chips. Kursevich has been playing poker for five years and normally plays live PLO ring games and MMTs. He also competes in the big online tournament series – and was involved in a five-way chop in last year’s WCOOP Main Event for a $750,000 payday. He has been proudly wearing his WCOOP final table jacket throughout EPT Deauville.

His biggest live result was third place at EPT Berlin last season for €300,000 and he also came 28th in this season’s EPT Barcelona event. He has played around eight EPTs in total. Away from poker, Kursevich likes to unwind by watching ice hockey and singing karaoke. Regarding tomorrow’s final, he said: “I feel pretty comfortable – and ready to compete against my opponents. I’ve got some chips so we will see.”

Seat 6: Paul “OMGpoloker06” Guichard, 19, Nice, France –PokerStars qualifier – 5,955,000
Guichard, who won his seat to EPT Deauville, is an up-and-coming player who is already getting good results on PokerStars.fr. He started playing poker with friends when he was 13. Once he could go online, he only made two deposits before he building a healthy bankroll. He also started playing live and once he graduated from high school, he decided to dedicate himself to poker and tennis. He says if he had to stop playing poker, then he’d resume his career as a tennis player. His online winnings already total $140,000 including €13,000 for fourth place in the €500 PokerStars.fr “All Star Game”.

Live, his best result was winning a side event in Cannes last September for €15,000. Guichard says he owes much to Clement Thumy, his coach for the last two years already. This was Guichard’s first EPT but he says if he finishes in top four tomorrow, he’ll plans to join the live poker tournament circuit

Seat 7: Luca Pagano, 33, Milan, Italy – Team PokerStars Pro – 2,010,000
Pagano was one of the very first members of Team PokerStars Pro, joining in shortly after the very first EPT Deauville event in season 1 of the PokerStars.com European Poker Tour. Before taking up poker, Pagano studied computer programming and also dabbled in the stock market. After discovering PokerStars, Luca began playing at the free money tables. He swiftly progressed to real money games and hasn’t looked back since. He’s clocked up numerous cashes in PokerStars’ biggest tournaments and also won countless amounts of money at the high stakes cash tables.

But it’s live tournaments where Pagano has really made his name. He has a record 20 cashes in EPT Main Events and this is his seventh EPT final table appearance. His first was also here – at the very first EPT Deauville in Season 1.

Pagano and fellow Team PokerStars Pro Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier have been juggling first and second place in the EPT All-Time Tournament Leaderboard for years (although Pagano’s performance here in Deauville will certainly put him back on top.)

Pagano’s best live result was sixth place at the EPT4 Grand Final for €337,000; he also came sixth at EPT Dortmund (€153,000) and sixth again at EPT Prague (€100,000) as well as numerous other deep runs. But it was on home soil that the popular Italian finally snagged a major tournament title when he took down the PokerStars Italian Poker Tour event in San Remo last July for €210,000. Pagano has nearly $2 million in overall live tournament earnings and currently lies sixth on Italy’s all-time money list. Pagano is being supported in Deauville by his fiancée Elena.

Seat 8: Yorane “viirusss” Kerignard, 26, Aix-en-Provence, France – 1,680,000
Yorane started playing poker after watching a documentary on television in 2007 featuring French singer and film star Patrick Bruel playing against online qualifiers. The 26-year-old industrial design graduate plays on PokerStars under the username “viirusss”. Favouring MTT events, Kerignard’s first live cash came in 2009 when he finished fifth in a small buy-in event in Cyprus. But just five months later, he hit the big time, finishing fourth in the Season 6 EPT Copenhagen Main Event for DKr 1,050,000 (around €120,000).

The biggest cash of his career however came last October when he finished fourth at EPT San Remo for €130,000. He’s also had a number of good EPT side event results including third in the Season 6 EPT Grand Final €1k NL event and fourth in the €2k event the following season. Kerignard spends most of the year in Marrakech, Morocco, which allows him to play on PokerStars.com. Online, his best result was runner-up in the PokerStars Sunday 500 for $78,500; he also won the PokerStars Super Tuesday for $70,000 in 2009.