This year’s PokerStars EPT Grand Final is over with American Mohsin Charania claiming victory and France’s Lucille Cailly finishing second, the best result ever by a woman at the season finale.
After the six other players went broke it came down to a flip, with Cailly all-in and at risk of elimination with A-K against Charania’s pocket queens.
The pocket queens held up and just like that Mohsin Charania became this season’s Grand Final champion.
On paper he gets €1.5 million but we know the actual sum was a bit less. When the final two players went heads-up they agreed upon a deal whereby Charania would take €1.15 million, and Cailly €1.05 million.
They left €200,000 on the table which, along with the trophy, went to Charania when he laid claim to every last chip in play.
“I was thinking, ‘Please hold, for the love of god, because I don’t know if I can handle second place.’ That sounds silly with all the money for second and everything but it’s true,’” Charania told PokerListings.com about the final hand.
“So I was half praying that my hand held and half preparing for what would happen if it didn’t,” he said.
Charania has had a string of close calls over the last few years but was clearly frustrated not to have come up with a big win.
“No one can take it away from me now. I won a big live tournament,” he said.
Lucille Cailly, meanwhile, might have left the trophy on the table but she did walk away with more than a million Euros, far and away the biggest score of her career.
Cailly is a 29-year-old tournament pro from Paris who’s been playing poker for five years. Her biggest result previous to tonight was a €29k victory at the now closed Cercle Wagram Club in Paris.
"I definitely underestimated her," Charania said of his heads-up opponent.
"I think I might have had the thinking that she’s a girl, so how aggressive can she be, and I played with her on the outer table when there was about 24 left and she just immediately started raising me every hand and I thought, 'Ok, well that’s going to be a bit of a challenge,'" added Charania.
Charania, who travels the live tournament circuit with accomplished pros Faraz Jaka and Athanasios Polychronopoulos, plans to play the Italian Poker Tour Grand Final in San Remo and the PokerStars SCOOP before heading to Las Vegas to play the 2012 World Series of Poker.
Big Online Talents Book Final-Table Finishes
Making the final table but falling short of victory was a handful of players who are better known online than they are live.
Daniel “Garnerus” Gomez is a Supernova Elite on PokerStars and a former chess champion. He’s been playing online poker for seven years and scored by far the biggest payday of his career when he finished eighth tonight for €130,000.
Gomez was the first player to go from the final table, busting with A-Q all-in preflop against pocket kings.
Canadian Clayton "slammedfire" Mozdzen was the next to go with A-T all-in preflop against Lucille Cailly’s A-Q. Mozdzen is a Supernova on PokerStars who made a final table at EPT Warsaw in Season 6. Mozdzen received €185,000 for his finish here in Monte Carlo.
Michael "Pipedream17" Dietrich, another Canadian, was arguably the most experienced online player at the final table with more than $4.1 million in online winnings.
Dietrich busted in sixth for €245,000 when he ran A♣ 9♣ into Mohsin Charania’s A♦ K♦.
Out next was Brazilian Rodrigo "caprioli" Caprioli, another Supernova Elite on PokerStars. Caprioli bought into this event with 850,000 PokerStars VPPs and parlayed that into a fifth-place finish worth €315,000.
Out in fourth was Italian Sergio Castelluccio who’s biggest score to date was a €200,000 win on the Italian Poker Tour stop in San Remo.
Castelluccio doubled that result when he busted in fourth here for €400,000.
The final player to bust before heads-up play began was 64-year-old Bernard Guigon. A pharmacist originally from France but living in Senegal, Guigon cashed to the tune of €545,000 for his third-place finish.
Here are the final table results for the EPT8 Grand Final in Monte Carlo, adjusted to reflect the heads-up deal:
- 1. Moshin Charania - €1,350,000*
- 2. Lucille Cailly - €1,050,000*
- 3. Bernard Guigon - €545,000
- 4. Sergio Castelluccio - €400,000
- 5. Rodrigo Caprioli - €315,000
- 6. Michael Dietrich - €245,000
- 7. Clayton Mozdzen - €185,000
- 8. Daniel Gomez - €130,000
Tournament hasn’t had a good final table in five years where sthe phil hellmuths and chris moneymakers now?