The European Poker Tour’s Grand Final is Europe’s most prestigious poker event, and the 2007 edition began last week with all the traditional glitz and glamour the players have come to expect from their trips to Monte Carlo.
706 players coughed up the €10,000 ($13,356) buy-in, including most of the world’s most famous and decorated poker players, all attracted by a prize pool in excess of €6.6 million ($8.8 million).
By the time the final table was reached most of the big names were gone, but three remained. Two of them, Ram Vaswani of the Hendon Mob and Ireland’s Andy Black, were already EPT legends, while Mark Karam, who recently made the Aussie Millions final table alongside Andy Black, was the only player in familiar territory, having finished fourth in Monte Carlo last year.
At the start of play the chip counts were as follows:
Gavin Griffin (USA) – 2,597,000
Marc Karam (Can) – 1,742,000
Soren Kongsgaard (Den) – 1,612,000
Josh Prager (USA) – 1,593,000
Kristian Kjondal (Nor) – 1,203,000
Steve Jelinek (UK) – 758,000
Andy Black (Ire) – 683,000
Ram Vaswani (UK) - 432,000
But it didn’t take long before there was a bit of extra space on the table, with the short stacked Ram Vaswani dropping out on the fifth hand of play. He moved all-in when the turn gave him top pair to go with his flush draw, but Marc Karam called with top pair and a better kicker and when the flush missed Ram was out in 8th place (€159,270).
Before long Ram was joined on the rail by fellow shortstack Andy Black, who found a spot to push with 7-7 on a board showing 8-8-3. Unfortunately for Andy his opponent, Kristian Kjondal, had a better pocket pair and Andy was out in seventh (€238,910).
It didn’t get any better for the short-stacks, with Steve Jelinek also running his pocket pair into an opponents pocket jacks. He picked up €305,270 for finishing sixth. It seemed that pocket pairs were battling on almost every hand, and the next man out was yet another victim of an opponents higher pockets. Josh Prager was that man, moving all-in with 7-7 on an 8-2-2 flop and bowing out in fifth when Soren Kongsgaard’s pocket tens held up to take the pot. Prager got €391,550 for fifth place.
But Kongsgaard was soon crippled when, you guessed it, he ran a pocket pair headfirst into a better one. Gavin Griffin was all-in with pocket queens preflop and Kongsgaard’s fishhooks failed to catch another jack. It was a huge pot, but Kongsgaard regained some ground soon after dinner when he doubled up with 8-8 versus Griffin’s A-Jo.
For Griffin it was just a minor setback, as he quickly set about Kristian Kjondal, knocking the Norwegian out in fourth place when he made a set of fours on the flop to beat Kjondal’s top pair. He got €471,180 for fourth place.
And Griffin soon had his revenge on Kongsgaard. The American raised preflop with A-J, and after checking a low flop he caught an ace on the turn and bet out. Kongsgaard made a badly timed but courageous play, moving all-in on a stone cold bluff, and was drawing dead when Griffin called. The Dane picked up €610,550 for third.
Despite knocking out the last two players Griffin started the heads-up battle behind in chips, but was able to battle back to even after about 25 hands. Then the fun started, with Griffin flopping a trip jacks and scooping a €3 million pot, only to give most of it back when Karam flopped two pair and rivered a full house.
And then came the final act of this intriguing match-up. On the 92nd hand of heads-up play Griffin raised pre-flop and then called a 400,000 re-raise with K-5. The flop came 2-3-4, giving Griffin an up and down straight draw so when Karam bet 500k Griffin re-raised to 2 million. Wasting no time Karam re-raised all-in, and put Griffin to the test.
Griffin went into the tank and eventually made the call, telling Karam as he did so that he thought the Canadian had the better hand. Sure enough Karam did, but not by much, his 7-4 starting out as a 51 percent favourite at best. And so, as so often happens, an epic heads-up battle would be decided by a coin flip.
The turn was the three of hearts, and now Karam was a big favourite with only one card to come. Unfortunately that last card was the king of hearts, and Griffin, with a marginal chip lead going into the hand, was the new EPT champion. Karam collected €1,061,820 for second.
Here are the final payouts:
Gavin Griffin (USA) – €1,825,010
Marc Karam (Can) – €1,061,820
Soren Kongsgaard (Den) – €610,550
Kristian Kjondal (Nor) – €471,180
Josh Prager (USA) – €391,550
Steve Jelinek (UK) – €305,270
Andy Black (Ire) – €238,910
Ram Vaswani (UK) - €159,270