He’s yet to close out a big event, however, settling for a final-table finish at EPT London for £86,350 last year for his biggest score to date.

Winamax pro Ludovic Lacay is part of a large group of players well over 300k in chips and on Adeniya's heels.

Lacay built up a big stack of his own over the day to lock down 377,300 for the start of action tomorrow.

Brahim Oubella (452,000), Artem Litvinov (397,100) and Jason Hallee (375,900) round out the top five.

Notables Rise, Notables Fall

Much like a Saturday on the PGA Tour, Day 2 in a poker tournament is moving day.

The contenders start to separate themselves from the pack and the pretenders start to fall by the wayside.

Big names positioned well to make another move upwards on Day 3 include Chris “NigDawG” Brammer (321,900), Bruno “Kool Shen” Lopes (304,600), Mustapha Kanit (289,000), Toby Lewis (278,000) and James Dempsey (274,600).

Still alive but around average stack or below are PokerStars pro Luca Pagano (172,000), Shannon Shorr (103,000), David Baker (98,400) and Ari Engel (50,400).

Bustouts

Notables hitting the rail today were Scotty Nguyen, Leonid Bilokur, Liv Boeree, Jake Cody, Fatima Moreira de Melo, Joe Ebanks, Vanessa Rousso, Kara Scott and Kevin MacPhee.

The money bubble hits at 128th place and with 178 players returning tomorrow it may be a while before it bursts.

A min-cash in Deauville is set for €7,500 with top spot paying out €875,000.

Action resumes at noon in Deauville; follow the live updates in the PokerStars blog.

Barbero finished the day with 106,300 while Rousso was slightly behind with 96,400.

Chip leader to end the day is Frenchman Amir Salhani, who bagged up 191,000.

Lewis, Cody Close Behind

Several other big names managed to navigate the French field and will join the leaders on Day 2.

Decent-sized stacks include Martins Adeniya (115,200), Toby Lewis (93,200), Fatima Moreira de Melo (81,000), Jake Cody (78,400), Shannon Shorr (75,300), Ludovic Lacay (68,800) and Ari Engel (56,300).

Making it through the day but with below-average stacks were Liv Boeree, Bruno “Kool Shen” Lopes, Joe Ebanks and Kevin MacPhee.

Also making an appearance on Day 1b was famed Vegas rounder Scotty Nguyen, who survived to see Day 2 with a stack of 33,100.

Bye Bye Blom, ElkY

Big names hitting the rail on Day 1b included Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, Vanessa Selbst, Viktor “Isildur1” Blom, Eugene Katchalov, David Benyamine and Dario Minieri.

With 550 registering to play on Day 1b a total of 889 officially turned out for this edition of EPT Deauville, only two players short of the record 891 from last year.

All told it makes for a €4,267,200 prize pool with 128 spots paid and €875,000 for first.

Day 2 action begins at noon in Deauville tomorrow.

Follow the live updates in the PokerStars blog.

Official final-table payouts are as follows:

1. €875,000

2. €557,000

3. €328,000

4. €260,000

5. €200,000

6. €155,000

7. €110,000

8. €67,200

This year, the festivities will be held in the new tournament area of the Casino Barriere at The Deauville International Centre. The venue is situated right on the shore of the English Channel and is attached to the famous Hotel Royal Barriere, which celebrates its 99th birthday this year. Deauville itself is a prestigious resort city, part of an area sometimes called the “Parisian rivieria,” as it is the nearest seaside resort to the French capital.

The EPT Deauville Main Event will begin with two starting days on Tuesday and Wednesday, followed by Days 2 and 3 on the remaining weekdays. Saturday’s Day 4 will end when 24 players remain (though plans can always change depending on how quickly or slowly players are eliminated), while Day 5 will conclude when the eight-handed final table is determined. Monday, February 6th is when the final table will be contested and the champion will be crowned.

Last year saw the largest turnout ever for the EPT Deauville Main Event, with 891 entrants creating a €4,276,800 prize pool. Lucien Cohen won the big tournament in his home country, banking €880,000.

Deauville has been a stop on the European Poker Tour since the Tour’s inception in 2004, though it was simply called the French Open in Seasons 1 and 2. Because of legal problems surrounding gambling in France, Deauville had to be removed from the schedule in early 2007, but it returned in January 2009 during Season 5 with its new name, EPT Deauville.

In addition to the €5,300 Main Event, there are close to 20 other side events, including a €10,000 + €300 No-Limit Hold’em tournament, a 32-player maximum, 2-day Heads-up event, and a 2-day Pot-Limit Omaha tournament. One unique tournament at EPT Deauville will be held Friday: a €300 + €30 men’s only event. The women will get their own tourney the following day, and to make things even more interesting, the winner from each will square off in a heads-up match on Sunday. In addition, the €1,000 + €100 2-day No-Limit Hold’em event starting Saturday, February 4th will be part of the France Poker Series.

While it is a bit late to qualify online at PokerStars, there is still a live super satellite into Day 1B of the Main Event on Tuesday at the casino. The tournament will cost €500 + €50, will allow one re-buy, and will start at 4:00pm local time. For those who miss that, there will be a few other super satellites during the week for players interested in trying to win seats into some of the other festival’s events, including the €10,000 No-Limit Hold’em event.

Those of you who read our summary of the PCA Day 2 may remember that Faraz Jaka’s online screen name is “The Toilet.”   If that was the first time you had ever seen that, you may have thought what we first thought: “Really? That’s what he wants to be known as?  The Toilet?”

It seems odd, immature, and maybe a bit inappropriate.  As it turns out, though, the back story behind the name is very tame and actually pretty clever.  In his days as a poker greenhorn at the University of Illinois, Jaka played in low stakes live games.  As most of us probably were when we were beginners (or still are), he was drawn to suited hole cards.  He played any two suited cards so often that his friends nicknamed him “The Toilet” because he was always trying to draw to a flush.  He took it as a badge of honor and began using the name online.

Jaka’s run back to the top of the chip counts was not a gradual one.  He didn’t pick up a few chips here and a few chips there, but rather made his moves in big chunks.  He started the day in great shape with 1.22 million chips, good for third place.  About three hours into play, he eliminated Sam Chartier, grabbing 149,000 chips.  Right after that, he dispatched Eddy Sabat for another 300,000, taking his stack up to 2 million.  Twenty minutes later, he got Martin Jacobson to call a half million chip bet on the river with the board reading 3c-2h-Ah-Qs-4h.  Jaka had Jh-9h, giving him his namesake hand and his chip stack swelled to 2.8 million.

A bit more than an hour later, not long after a break, Jaka scooped his biggest pot of the day.  Lawrence Greenberg raised pre-flop and Jaka called.  After the flop of Tc-3d-5s, Jaka checked, Greenberg called, and Jaka called.  Upon viewing a turn of the 5h, Jaka put out a 30,000 chip bet, only to see Greenberg raise it to 130,000.  At that, Jaka moved all-in and Greenberg called, putting himself all-in, as he was covered.  Greenberg had made the right call, holding Ad-Td for top pair versus Jaka’s 2h-4h (hey, suited cards!), which gave him an open-ended straight draw.  Unfortunately for Greenberg, the draw came through for Jaka, as the 6d fell on the river and Jaka was up to 3.75 million chips.

Jaka finished off the night by eliminating Barry Greenstein and elevating his stack to over 4 million.

Play will pick back up again on Thursday at noon as the final 8-handed table will be determined.

2012 European Poker Tour PokerStars Caribbean Adventure – End of Day 4 Chip Counts

Faraz Jaka – 4,114,000
Alex Fitzgerald – 2,709,000
Phil D’Auteuil – 2,280,000
Anthony Gregg – 2,142,000
Byron Kaverman – 2,136,000
Sam Greenwood – 2,109,000
Kyle Julius – 1,818,000
Lee Goldman – 1,760,000
Martin Jacobson – 1,627,000
Maksim Semisoshenko – 1,446,000
John Dibella – 1,406,000
Mark Drover – 1,383,000
Daniel Schmieding – 1,309,000
David Bernstein – 1,160,000
Xuan Liu – 1,082,000
David Granados – 980,000
Daniel Shiff – 834,000
Alex Venovski – 592,000
Corey Burbick – 551,000
Ruben Visser – 461,000
David Peters – 424,000
Charles Furey – 379,000
Danny Chevalier – 302,000
Nikolaos Alafogiannis – 221,000

The Californian ended with 4.1 million chips and is starting to pull away from his competition. Alex Fitzgerald is the closest but is more than a million chips behind Jaka.

Phil D’Auteuil, who plays as the very well-known “takechip” online, continues to live up to his online name and will take 2.2 million chips into action on Day 5. It’s enough to put the French Canadian third overall in chips.

Former PCA Main Event runner-up finisher Anthony Gregg is also in the top five chip counts with 2.1 million.

Meanwhile Swede Martin Jacobson is in the top 10 chip counts with 1.6 million.

Down But Not Out

Outside of the top 10 chip leaders there are still plenty of big names looking for PCA glory including last woman standing Xuan Liu (1,082,000).

Liu has quietly established herself as one of the up-and-coming female players in the game with significant cashes in both the WSOP and EPT with a third place finish at EPT San Remo for $524,704.

Last year Ana Marquez made the deepest run by a woman ever in the PCA when she finished 10th and Liu has a legitimate shot at breaking that record.

Some of the other notable players to book a seat in Day 5 include Daniel Shiff (834,000), Ruben Visser (461,000) and David Peters (424,000).

Sergio Garcia

 

Bumped to the Beach

Famed golfer Sergio Garcia’s amazing run at the 2012 PCA finally came to an end on Day 4 when his A-J failed against pocket queens.

On the bright side Garcia made it into the final 50 and received $35,000, his biggest score in poker ever.

Some of the other players to hit the rail on Day 4 included last year’s champ Galen Hall, Chris Klodnicki, Yevgeniy Timoshenko, Jan Heitmann, Arnaud Mattern and Luca Pagano.

Last Team PokerStars Pro still standing Barry Greenstein made a noble effort to survive with his short stack but ended up busting in 25th place for $46,000 to end the day.

The remaining 24 players will return to the Atlantis Convention Center at 12:00 p.m. local time to go about setting a final table.

First place will walk away with $2 million and the 2012 PCA title.

Here are the top 10 chip counts at the end of Day 4:

1. Faraz Jaka – 4,114,000 2. Alex Fitzgerald – 2,709,000 3. Phil D’Auteuil – 2,280,000 4. Anthony Gregg – 2,142,000 5. Byron Kaverman – 2,136,000 6. Sam Greenwood – 2,109,000 7. Kyle Julius – 1,818,000 8. Lee Goldman – 1,760,000 9. Martin Jacobson – 1,627,000 10. Maksim Semisoshenko – 1,446,000

Just 24 eliminations were needed heading into Tuesday’s Day 3 in order for the money bubble to burst.  This proximity to the money line combined with a slew of all-ins during hand-for-hand play resulted in the cash threshold being crossed quickly.  After that, the shorter stacked players fell like so many dominoes.  After just over four levels of action, the field had already been whittled down to 64 players, so tournament officials had everyone bag their chips and get rested up for Wednesday.

Topping all at the end of Day 3 is French-Canadian Phil D’Auteuil with 1.472 million chips.  Sam Greenwood is nipping at his heels with 1.401 million, while four other players – Day 2 chip leader Faraz Jaka, Alex Fitzgerald, Anthony Gregg, and Kyle Julius – had all eclipsed the seven-figure mark.

Some might find it interesting that despite the PCA being a stop on the European Poker Tour, the top of the current leader board has a distinctly North American flavor.  D’Auteuil, Greenwood, and Julius are all Canadian, while Jaka, Fitzgerald, and Gregg are from the United States.  The highest ranking European is Germany’s Peter Draexl, sitting in 7th place.  Of the top 20 players, 16 are from North America.

Phil D’Auteuil does not have much of a live tournament history (or any at all, really, as he is not listed in the TheHendonMob.com  tournament database), but he is very well-known online, playing under the screenname “takechip” at PokerStars.  He has won hundreds of thousands of dollars in Sit-and-Go tournaments and according to PokerTableRatings.com, has earned over $1.8 million in cash games at PokerStars since February 2008.  Auteuil tends to focus on $10/$20, $25/$50, and $50/$100 No-Limit Hold’em and Pot-Limit Omaha cash games, but has played as high as $200/$400.

Apart from those already mentioned, several notable players are still alive in the tournament.  Team PokerStars pro Luca Pagano is currently sitting in 9th place with 863,000 chips, putting him in position to possibly overtake Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier for the top spot on the all-time EPT points list.  There are currently about 400 points separating the two.  Galen Hall, last year’s PCA Main Event champ, is still fighting, though he’s one of the short stacks, so he has some work to do if he is going to repeat.  Hall also placed 3rd in this year’s PCA High Roller event.  Other “name” players remaining include Bill Chen, Barry Greenstein, Erik Cajelais, Chris Klodnicki, Yevgeniy Timoshenko, and Arnaud Mattern.

The 2012 EPT PCA will resume on Wednesday at noon local time as the players make their charges toward the final table.  The plan is to play down to 24 before breaking for the night.

2012 European Poker Tour PokerStars Caribbean Adventure – End of Day 3 Chip Leaders

Phil D’Auteuil – 1,472,000
Sam Greenwood – 1,401,000
Faraz Jaka – 1,220,000
Alex Fitzgerald – 1,154,000
Anthony Gregg – 1,129,000
Kyle Julius – 1,019,000
Peter Draexl – 951,000
David Bernstein – 876,000
Luca Pagano – 863,000
David Peters – 857,000

Jaka made his run early on Monday, growing his chip stack to right around 700,000 within just the first level.  He later scooped one of the most significant pots of the tournament to soar to over a million chips.  He was up against Chino Rheem, who went into the day with the second largest chip stack.  On each street – after the Ks-Js-6d flop, the 4d turn, and and Ad river – Jaka led out with a bet and every time Rheem called him.  At showdown, Jaka turned over Ah-Kc for top two pair.  Rheem mucked and found himself crippled.  Jaka grabbed Rheem’s last few chips shortly thereafter and just like that, one of the toughest players in the tournament was gone.

Faraz Jaka, who goes by the colorful handle “The Toilet” in his online games, has developed the reputation of being one of the best young tournament players in the world and definitely one of the best without a World Series of Poker (WSOP) or World Poker Tour (WPT) title.  The 26-year old has just shy of $2.4 million in lifetime earnings on the live tournament circuit, the bulk of which came in 2009 during a tremendous streak of three cashes.  In June of that year, he placed 3rd in the $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em Six-Handed event at the WSOP for $400,525, then finished 2nd the next month in the $15,000 No-Limit Hold’em Championship Event at the Bellagio Cup V, winning $774,780.  His next cash came in December in the $15,000 No-Limit Hold’em Main Event of the Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic, a $571,374 score.  All told, that’s $1,746,679 over the course of three cashes.

A number of well-known names, including Bertrand Grospellier, Dario Minieri, Christian Harder, Vanessa Selbst, John Racener, Michael Mizrachi, and Humberto Brenes, fell by the wayside on Monday.  Several other players that people might recognize remain, though, including Arnaud Mattern, Galen Hall, Phil Collins, David Benefield, Barry Shulman, Adam Levy, Shane Schleger, Shawn Buchanan, Andrew Lichtenberger, and Yevgeniy Timoshenko.

Day 3 picks up at noon local time as the remaining players head towards the money bubble.

2011 WPT PokerStars Caribbean Adventure – End of Day 2 Chip Leaders

Faraz Jaka – 902,500
Cristian Folescu – 555,500
Erik Cajelais – 528,000
Connor Drinan – 436,000
Alex Kuzmin – 425,500
Jens Patzner – 423,000
Phil D’Auteuil – 413,500
Ruben Visser – 372,000
Robin Van Gils – 360,500
Brian England – 354,000
Ashley Mason – 354,000

Alex Venovski leads the way for the Day 1b flight with 193,000, but 2008 November Niner Chino Rheem is a very close second at 182,900.

Rheem has to consider himself lucky to be there, however, as he scooped a huge pot at the end of the night despite a misread of his own hand.

According to the PokerStars blog, Rheem and Tyler Kenney got it all in for a 120k pot pre-flop with Kenney flipping up kings and Rheem calling out aces.

Only problem was Rheem actually had A-2. An ace on the river gave Rheem the right pair though and the big stack heading into Day 2.

Takechip Lurking

Third in the Day 1b chip counts is veteran pro Jonathan Jaffe with 182,000, and just behind him is high-stakes online poker notable Phil "takechip" D'Auteuil at 170,800.

D'Auteuil is fresh from a solid week online that saw him take home $92k in profit.

Combined with the 418 runners from Day 1a yesterday, the total field for the 2012 PCA main event topped out at 1,072 players.

That makes for a total prize pool of $10,398,400 which will be split among the top 160 finishers.

Top prize will be a sizable $2 million with $1.2 million reserved for second place and six figures guaranteed for the final 10 players.

Notables Returning, Busting

Among the other notable players from Day 1b to make it to Day 2 with a healthy stack were Arnaud Mattern (139,300), Luca Pagano (136,300), Ari Engel (118,700), 2010 PCA Main Event champ Harrison Gimbel (114,500), 2010 WSOP November Niner Matt Jarvis (110,300), poker legend Barry Greenstein (106,200) and Yevgeniy Timoshenko (105,800).

Russian Alexey Repik, who bagged up 220,000 to end Day 1a, will retain the overall chip lead when players return tomorrow for Day 2.

Notable players hitting the rail today included Pius Heinz, Daniel Negreanu, Viktor Blom, Jonathan Duhamel, Jason Mercier, Vanessa Rousso, Eugene Katchalov and Eli Elezra.

The remaining 545 players from the two Day 1 fields will combine and resume the hunt for the final table starting at noon (EST).

Catch all the action live in the PokerStars blog.

With the twelve men already guaranteed a $50,920 payday, all were setting their sights on the top prize of $801,680. They would first have to work their way down to the final five combatants by splitting up into three, four handed tables. After the stunning actions on Friday, Joe Tehan held a substantial lead (and approximately twenty percent of the chips), but Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi and Scott Clements were among those ready to take him down.

Within moments of the start of play on Saturday, Mizrachi would eliminate the first player from the action. After a raise from the short stacked Amnon Filippi, Mizrachi put the pressure on by three betting from the big blind. Filippi saw his opportunity to gain some chips through one of the big stacks and moved all in, which Mizrachi happily called. “The Grinder’s” pocket Queens were ahead of Filippi’s A-Q of spades and, after no Ace appeared on the board, Amnon went to the cash out window to collect his money.

Andrew Lichtenberger was responsible for the next elimination, which started “luckychewy” on an upward trend that would continue throughout the day. He doubled up through Hafiz Khan when his pocket Queens outlasted Khan’s pocket eights, then finished the job by eliminating Khan with those same eights against Khan’s pocket threes. The elimination of Khan would push Lichtenberger’s stack to the 575K mark and, minutes later, he would make a better full house than Amit Makhija to push it over 900K.

Tehan was unable to ride the same wave he had on Friday, doubling up Sorel Mizzi to drop his stack to around 800K, while Lichtenberger continued to rise up the leaderboard. Andrew cracked the one million chip mark by eliminating Makhija in tenth place and Mizrachi also continued to grind, joining Lichtenberger over one million chips. Down to nine players on short tables, the chips continued to fly around the felt as the players looked towards today’s championship round.

Mizzi would be dispatched in ninth place by Clements when his flush draw failed to come home against “BigRiskky” and his flopped pair of ten and turned trips. David Williams would end his tournament in eighth place after he locked into a pre-flop battle with Jason Mercier. Mercier, who was looking for some final Player of the Year points by playing in this event, held pocket Kings against Williams’ A-5 of spades and, after the board failed to give David an Ace, he departed the Palms with $89,680 in his pocket.

After four hours of play, seven men were left to contest for the final day play. Mercier would be dealt a blow to his POY aspirations as, against Chris Klodnicki, he called all in on a Q-7-2-10 flop and turn. Mercier was in great position with his Q-10, but “SloppyKlod” turned up the two remaining tens in his hand for a turned set. Another seven on the river sealed the hand for Klodnicki, eliminating Mercier in seventh place.

Barely a half hour later, the final five players for Sunday’s Championship Day action were determined. Day Two chip leader Noah Schwartz, who couldn’t gain any traction on Saturday, saw a rainbow flop of J-10-4 with Klodnicki. After Chris checked, Noah pushed out a 14K bet, only to have Chris check-raise him to 40K. Noah made the call and the duo went to the turn.

A second ten there would end the action for the day. Klodnicki chose to bet this time, 45,000 in chips, and Schwartz would make the raise to 108K. Chris wasn’t deterred, however, moving all in and getting a call from Noah after some time in the tank. Klodnicki held pocket fours this time for the flopped set and turned boat; all Schwartz could muster was a 10-7 for turned trips and, once the river didn’t bring the case ten, a Jack or a seven, Noah Schwartz was eliminated in sixth place late Saturday afternoon.

Lichtenberger extended his chip lead while this hand was in action. Against Clements, the duo would see an A-8-4-3-J board, with big bets on every street. After the river Jack, Clements checked over to Lichtenberger, who pushed out 335K and Clements made the call. He would muck his hand, however, after Lichtenberger showed A-J for Aces up, catapulting Lichtenberger up to 1.7 million in chips and crippling Clements down to 131K.

With his outstanding performance on Saturday, Lichtenberger will lead these men to the felt on Sunday to determine a champion:

1. Andrew Lichtenberger, 1.742 million
2. Michael Mizrachi, 1.279 million
3. Chris Klodnicki, 1.024 million
4. Joe Tehan, 820,000
5. Scott Clements, 131,000

The tournament’s champion will be determined in a unique manner. The final five will play down to heads up action, at which point those two men will play off in a best two out of three format. The heads up players will start the first two games with the chips they bring in from the tournament action and, if necessary, the third match will start with even chip stacks. It should make for an exciting Sunday of poker action as the Epic Poker League determines their third ever champion.

“It’s unnecessary but I guess it’s nice to be remembered for what we went through to get poker to this point,” Brunson told The Associated Press. “Most people just don’t realize exactly what all transpired … but we went through some pretty adverse things.”

Jeffrey Pollack, Executive Chairman of Federated Sports & Gaming (FS&G), the company that owns the Epic Poker League, cites Brunson’s contributions to the game, in addition to his success at the tables, as the reason for the lifetime exemption.

“The modern history of poker is Doyle’s life,” Pollack said.

Annie Duke, Executive Vice President of FS&G and Commissioner of the Epic Poker League, said, “He just has this secret sauce of every accomplishment you can imagine, big generosity to the poker community, incredible longevity, amazing ambassadorship.  And then on top of that he’s just an easy guy to really like.”

Brunson currently holds a 2-year Category A membership card, indicating that he is eligible for the Epic Poker League through 2013.  Players who have achieved this level of eligibility have at least $2 million in adjusted lifetime tournament earnings, with a maximum of $1 million counting from any single tournament, at least one major lifetime title, and at least six cashes since January 1, 2008 for a total of least $300,000.

We all know that Brunson has won his share of major titles, including ten World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelets.  And while his tournament play has slowed down in recent years, he still has more than enough winnings since January 1, 2008 to hit the $300,000 threshold.  His WSOP and World Poker Tour cashes alone easily take him over that mark.

Brunson has yet to play in an Epic Poker League event and just because he now has lifetime eligibility doesn’t mean he’s about to pony up $20,000 for every league Main Event.  “As I’m getting older, these tournaments are getting too hard to come through,” he said. “It’s probably not worth it to me anymore to really go on the tournament grind, so I don’t plan on playing a whole lot of tournaments the rest of my life.

“I much prefer to play cash games.”

The Epic Poker League Tournament Series Three Main Event begins Wednesday at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas.  It is slated to run five days, concluding with the final heads-up matches on December 18th.  The tournament is a bit different than the standard No-Limit Hold’em tournament, as it is a Mix-Max event.  On Day 1, the tables will be 8-handed.  Day 2 will feature 7-handed tables and will redraw to 6-handed if the field gets down to 36 players.  Day 3 will be 6-handed and will redraw to 4-handed if it gets to 12 players, while Day 4 will be 4-handed.  The final day will feature just two players competing in a best-of-three heads-up battle.  Interestingly, for the first two heads-up matches, the players will start with the chip stacks they had at the beginning of heads-up play, but if it goes to a third match, the chip stacks will be evened out.