“I feel very much magnificent,” bragged Joseph Mouawad, the Lebanese property investor taking home a certainly magnificent £611,520 for his victory in this year’s London EPT.
As with the previous 3 years, the Grosvenor Victoria were the hosts, but this time boasted a fully refurbished cardroom in which all players were located on just the one floor and faced with a brand spanking new London landscape mural made up of tiny images of poker players – quite spectacular indeed!
But artwork aside, the gambling world were here to play poker, and 392 in all turned up to do exactly that. With an increased buy-in of £5,200, the price certainly wasn’t cheap, but all the big names still dug deep into their pockets, the likes of Daniel Negreanu, Jeff Lisandro, Scott Fischman and Patrik Antonius happy to make this a star-studded event.
But whilst the giants of the game had crossed shores, there were many a player from more local parts, Dave Colclough, Marc Goodwin, Praz Bansi and Ram Vaswani keen to make it a quadruplet of British champions after John Shipley, Mark Teltscher and Vicky Coren had triumphed in seasons past.
However, when push came to shove, and although Pascal Perrault, Roland de Wolfe and Surinder Sunar came agonisingly close, the final table line-up was a rather unfamiliar one:
Florian Langmann (Garmany) -- 917,000
Jospeh Mouawad (Lebanon)-- 780,000
Marcel Baran (Germany) -- 583,000
Josh Egan (New Zealand) -- 477,000
Anthony Lellouche (France) -- 466,000
Paul Mendes (United Kingdom) -- 282,000
Ian Cox (United Kingdom) -- 234,000
Fredrik Haugen (Sweden) -- 190,000
With the sharply attired Jason Hackett snapping up that final day bubble, the weight of continuing the winning trend lay on the shoulders of Poole’s Ian ‘Crapper’ Cox (right) and the steston-ed Paul Mendez. However, unfortunately for the local rail, these would be the first exits, Ian Cox’s K-7 being cruelly outdrawn by Langmann’s K-3 before Mendez ran K-T into the Big Slick of Lellouche.
With Lellouche himself snapping up 6th for £97,843, next to hit the rail was young Swede Fredrik Haugen, his cracking call with A-J to Langmann’s all-in with Q-T being inexplicably punished by the Poker Gods with a 7-K-T-T-4 board.
Once down to just 3,000 in chips, student Josh Egan was forced to make the longest journey home, his K-J clash against Langmann’s Bullets seeing him head all the way back to New Zealand, but with a rather lucrative 152,800 of the Queen’s finest to his name.
Three left, and although Mourawad was the clear chip daddy after winning a massive A-K versus 4-4 coinflip with Langmann earlier on, it was the German who would eliminate his shortstacked fellow countryman. Pushing with Pocket Fours, web developer come pro poker player Marcel Baran was called by Langmann’s K-7, the latter pairing up as a King promptly flew out of the dealer’s hand.
The reigning German Champion, Dresden’s Langmann would have to combine all his poker experience to overcome a 1.9 to 2.6 chip lead, but although he won a number of average sized pots, he was never able to come close to reaching that goal, the young German mistakenly calling all-in with 8-9 versus Q-3 on a Q-9-6 Flop. A third Queen on the Turn and it was all over, the Beirut poker veteran of 15 years exclaiming “Yes!” and excitedly celebrating his victory with his friends.
Rather stoic in his acceptance speech, Mouawad came across as a timid, but highly amicable chap as he attempted to answer the piercing questions of new EPT interviewer/host Kara Scott. Kara raised the topic of Mouawad almost cancelling at the last minute, but the real unasked question was “Will we ever see him again?” I guess we’ll just have to wait till Baden to find out…
As with the previous 3 years, the Grosvenor Victoria were the hosts, but this time boasted a fully refurbished cardroom in which all players were located on just the one floor and faced with a brand spanking new London landscape mural made up of tiny images of poker players – quite spectacular indeed!
But artwork aside, the gambling world were here to play poker, and 392 in all turned up to do exactly that. With an increased buy-in of £5,200, the price certainly wasn’t cheap, but all the big names still dug deep into their pockets, the likes of Daniel Negreanu, Jeff Lisandro, Scott Fischman and Patrik Antonius happy to make this a star-studded event.But whilst the giants of the game had crossed shores, there were many a player from more local parts, Dave Colclough, Marc Goodwin, Praz Bansi and Ram Vaswani keen to make it a quadruplet of British champions after John Shipley, Mark Teltscher and Vicky Coren had triumphed in seasons past.
However, when push came to shove, and although Pascal Perrault, Roland de Wolfe and Surinder Sunar came agonisingly close, the final table line-up was a rather unfamiliar one:
Florian Langmann (Garmany) -- 917,000
Jospeh Mouawad (Lebanon)-- 780,000
Marcel Baran (Germany) -- 583,000
Josh Egan (New Zealand) -- 477,000
Anthony Lellouche (France) -- 466,000
Paul Mendes (United Kingdom) -- 282,000
Ian Cox (United Kingdom) -- 234,000
Fredrik Haugen (Sweden) -- 190,000
With the sharply attired Jason Hackett snapping up that final day bubble, the weight of continuing the winning trend lay on the shoulders of Poole’s Ian ‘Crapper’ Cox (right) and the steston-ed Paul Mendez. However, unfortunately for the local rail, these would be the first exits, Ian Cox’s K-7 being cruelly outdrawn by Langmann’s K-3 before Mendez ran K-T into the Big Slick of Lellouche.With Lellouche himself snapping up 6th for £97,843, next to hit the rail was young Swede Fredrik Haugen, his cracking call with A-J to Langmann’s all-in with Q-T being inexplicably punished by the Poker Gods with a 7-K-T-T-4 board.
Once down to just 3,000 in chips, student Josh Egan was forced to make the longest journey home, his K-J clash against Langmann’s Bullets seeing him head all the way back to New Zealand, but with a rather lucrative 152,800 of the Queen’s finest to his name.
Three left, and although Mourawad was the clear chip daddy after winning a massive A-K versus 4-4 coinflip with Langmann earlier on, it was the German who would eliminate his shortstacked fellow countryman. Pushing with Pocket Fours, web developer come pro poker player Marcel Baran was called by Langmann’s K-7, the latter pairing up as a King promptly flew out of the dealer’s hand.
The reigning German Champion, Dresden’s Langmann would have to combine all his poker experience to overcome a 1.9 to 2.6 chip lead, but although he won a number of average sized pots, he was never able to come close to reaching that goal, the young German mistakenly calling all-in with 8-9 versus Q-3 on a Q-9-6 Flop. A third Queen on the Turn and it was all over, the Beirut poker veteran of 15 years exclaiming “Yes!” and excitedly celebrating his victory with his friends.Rather stoic in his acceptance speech, Mouawad came across as a timid, but highly amicable chap as he attempted to answer the piercing questions of new EPT interviewer/host Kara Scott. Kara raised the topic of Mouawad almost cancelling at the last minute, but the real unasked question was “Will we ever see him again?” I guess we’ll just have to wait till Baden to find out…