24-year-old Belarusian Vadzim Kursevich has won the 2012 PokerStars.fr EPT Deauville Main Event.
After a slow start , Kursevich absolutely dominated play in the latter half of the day and despite a change in momentum heads-up, the 2011 WCOOP Main Event finalist and EPT Berlin thrid-place finisher, held on to grab the €875,000 first-place prize and his first EPT title.
The day began with Paul Guichard leading, but Kursevich doubled through him with ace-king versus ace-queen early on to move above the 7 million chip mark and knock Guichard down to size.
A rather wild ride followed for Kursevich, as he spent the next few hours moving up and down the leaderboard as easily the most active player at the final table.
Vuong Than Trong busted Team PokerStars Pro Luca Pagano to get things started for him, and appeared to be making a run, picking up a number of pots without showdown to move up to the top of the leaderboard.
He then traded several blows with Kursevich as the two became embroiled in a dead heat for the chip lead. Trong picked up kings and picked off Bruno Jais' ace-queen to send him to the rail soon after and take the outright lead. But after a dinner break, everything changed.
Trong four-bet shoved ace-queen into Kursevich's kings to hand Kursevich the biggest pot of the tournament so far and a 2:1 chip lead on the rest of the table. Kursevich busted Yorane Kerignard next to increase that lead and went into heads-up with better than a 6:1 advantage, after sending Trong out third with ace-jack holding against king-ten.
A handicapped Guichard got lucky double up when his jack-high connected against king-high and the Frenchman suddenly stole all the momentum, winning pot after pot until he pulled almost even. But finally, after Guichard flopped a set and Kursevich turned a flush draw and double gutter, all the money went in the middle and Kursevich rivered a straight to end it all.
Congratulations to Vadzim Kursevich, who can now be called an EPT Champion, as the PokerNews crew says au revoir from Deauville.
Here's how the final table finished up:
Place Player Prize
1 Vadzim Kursevich €875,000
2 Paul Guichard €557,000
3 Vuong Than Trong €328,000
4 Yorane Kerignard €260,000
5 Bruno Jais €200,000
6 Olivier Rogez €155,000
7 Luca Pagano €110,000
8 Mick Graydon € 67,200
http://www.pokernews.com/live-reporting/2012-pokerstars-com-ept-deauville/main-event/
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