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Esfandiari Working his Magic in Monte Carlo

Day Four at the EPT Monte Carlo sees Antonio Esfandiari make his move to the top of the chip counts

Wednesday 16th April 2008



Records were broken, and a father and son combination cashed for the first time at an EPT event. While some where looking at the record books being rewritten, one Mr Esfandiari was busy raking in the chips.

His major break came with four hours of play left in Day 3 of the PokerStars.com European Poker Tour Grand Final in Monte Carlo. Mark Keightley opened the pot for 14,000, which Esfandiari reraised upto 40,000. Music to the ears of Keightley, who moved all in with his pocket kings, only to find Antonio’s aces had him in bad shape. A 600,000 pot and a cold deck – all it takes to send one of poker’s most feared pros to the top of the EPT Grand Final chip counts.

When Surinder Sunar’s pocket jacks lost in a race against Richard Sousa’s Kh-Qh, the money bubble was burst. With that, Luca Pagano became the player to have cashed the most EPT events (nine), as well as one half of the first father and son coupling to cash in the same event. Play continued until there were only 39 players left, with Johnny Lodden still well placed amongst the chip leaders. Other familiar names among the players who will come back for Day Four include Raymond Rahme, Freddy Deeb, and Oyvind Riisem, as well as Luca and Claudio Pagano.

Overnight chip leaders:

Antonio Esfandiari – 1,198,000

Robin Keston – 916,000

Denes Kalo – 642,000

Johnny Lodden – 623,000

Maxime Villemure – 600,000

Mostafa Belkhayate – 523,000

Gerasimos Deres – 494,500

Henrik Gwinner – 487,000

David Shade Kruger – 486,500

Thomas Boekhoff – 465,000

 


Source: OnlineCasinoNews