Nicolas Dumont Wins EPT Monte Carlo Main Event, Peters 4th, Antonius 6th

The EPT Monte Carlo Main Event is an event which is keenly anticipated every year, as it takes place in one of Europe’s most luxurious locations and has an unusual habit of creating final tables with star names and interesting stories. The 2018 instalment was no different, with star players Ole Schemion and Patrick Antonius taking their seats at the final table, along with live tournament grinder David Peters.

777 entries

777 players paid the €5,200 buy in for the event, generating a prize pool of €3,768,450 for the EPT Monte Carlo Main Event, with €712,000 set aside for the winner. After two starting flights and a second day of action, David Peters led the field, with several strong players occupying the chasing pack. Randy Lew, Andre Akkari, Adrian Mateos, Davidi Kitai, Philipp Gruissem and Erik Seidel were among the big names who started well but did not reach the final table.

Ole Schemion,Patrick AntoniusandDavid Petersamong the Final 8

Day 3 saw David Peters hold on to top spot in the chip counts, with Antonius and Kitai moving up into the top 10 chip counts. Mateos and Schemion had played their way into contention by the end of the fourth day, before the final table was set at the end of day 5. French player Nicolas Dumont led the way, but many big threats remained.

Schemion began the final day as the short stack and quickly busted, before Patrick Antonius followed him to the rail in 6th place to leave only David Peters flying the flag for the bigger names. He managed to manoeuvre is way into the final four players, but unfortunately for the US pro he could not get the job done, exiting in 4th place.

Nicolas Dumont claims the title

Ultimately, nobody could find their way past the man who led coming into the final table – Nicolas Dumont. He came out on top in a heads-up battle with New Zealander Honglin Jiang. The two players began closely matched in chip counts, but one huge pot would quickly decide the champion, with Jiang’s pocket sixes running into the pocket queens of Dumont.

The final payouts are as follows:

1st Nicolas Dumont – €712,000
2nd Honglin Jiang – €434,000
3rd Tomas Jozonis – €308,000
4th David Peters – €232,000
5th Krisztian Gyorgyi – €184,000
6th Patrick Antonius – €139,050
7th Javier Fernandez – €99,900
8th Ole Schemion – €68,300

Article by Craig Bradshaw