Posted on Dec 15th 2012 - Subject: Jelassi Carries Lead into EPT Prague Final Table
Swedish poker pro Ramzi Jelassi leads tough competition like Ben Warrington and David Boyaciyan heading into the final table of EPT Prague.
Jelassi, a regular on the EPT, took the lead and broke the final-table bubble in one fell swoop by eliminating Mariusz Klosinski with pocket kings against queens all-in preflop.
The field had been cut down to 24 since the last time we checked in and during the playdown to the final eight Jelassi was able to stack 5,675,000, enough to edge out his nearest competition Aleh Plauski.
Plauski, who has earned more than $2.3 million playing online poker tournaments under online names cooltwister and oleg12345, finished the day with just over 4.7 million.
Sitting behind Plauski in third position is David Boyaciyan. A Dutch player with more than $1.3 million in live cashes, Boyaciyan came second in this very tournament last year before going on to win the Masters Classic of Poker in Amsterdam.
But Plauski and Boyaciyan aren't the only tough talent at the table.
Ben “KIDCARDIFF” Warrington is a poker pro from the UK who has earned more than $2 million online. With just $67k in live cashes dating back to 2008 Warrington is already guaranteed to make the biggest score of his live career in Prague tomorrow.
Also representing the online pro contingent is American Mark Herm. Playing as dipthrong online Herm has scored major victories on practically every poker room on the internet.
Another close call for Johnny Lodden.
Rounding out the final table are relative unknowns Sotirios Koutoupas, Sergey Kuzminskiy and Diego Gomez.
Here are the full EPT Prague final-table chip counts:
1. David Boyaciyan - 4,635,000
2. Sergey Kuzminskiy - 1,850,000
3. Ramzi Jelassi - 5,675,000
4. Ben Warrington - 2,200,000
5. Sotirios Koutoupas - 3,775,000
6. Mark Herm - 1,700,000
7. Aleh Plauski - 4,705,000
8. Diego Gomez – 1,380,000
EPT Title Continues to Elude Lodden
Team PokerStars Pro Johnny Lodden has made the top 20 in EPT main events six times in his career, but has so far been unable to close in on a title.
He notched a seventh top-20 finish today, finishing 13th after running pocket tens into David Boyaciyan's pocket aces.
Lodden was joined on the rail by Canadian Jeff Sarwer (18th), early chip leader Iosif Beskrovnyy (20th), Roberto Romanello (21st) and Manuel Bevand (23rd).
Final-Table Payouts
Here's a look at the cash up for grabs at the EPT Prague final table:
1st - €835,000
2nd - €510,000
3rd - €310,000
4th - €250,000
5th - €196,000
6th - €150,000
7th - €108,400
8th - €75,000
Action continues tomorrow in Prague when a champion will be crowned and €835,000 will be awarded.
