Today 32 players returned, amongst them Brits Ben Callinan, David Mobbs (pictured), Ram Vaswani and Steve Jelinek. The latter two of these have made it through to tomorrows final, but Ben and Dave are not going home empty handed. Indeed they picked up nice paydays for their efforts, even though they missed out on a shot at becoming poker millionaires.

The players making the final, their chip counts and the odds quoted by Blue Square are:

Seat	Name	Chip Count	Odds
Seat 7	Gavin Griffin	2,597k	5/2
Seat 5	Soren Kongsgaard	1,612k	4/1
Seat 3	Marc Karam	1,742k	6/1
Seat 6	Josh Prager	1,593k	6/1
Seat 8	Kristian Kjondal	1,204k	6/1
Seat 4	Andy Black	683k	8/1
Seat 2	Steve Jelinek	758k	9/1
Seat 1	Ram Vaswani	432k	12/1

It’s been a fantastically run event and easily the biggest event ever staged in Europe. One wonders just how big this event could be next year. A few years ago numbers attending the WSOP exploded and it could well be that we see an even bigger year-on-year increase in participants next year as we did this year. I would not be surprised to see it go to over 1,500 players.

It was a shame that neither Mickey Wernick nor JP Kelly managed to get into the prize money, but success is never guaranteed in poker. Phil Ivey, regarded as one of the best players in the world, did not even make it one hour into the tournament before he was eliminated. Joe Hachem also had a relatively short stint at the tables and the first player to be sent to the rail was Marcel Luske, who lasted only two hands. There is hope for us mortals yet, but this is no lottery and it takes patience, perseverance and a lot of luck to even get to the final table.

Originally this had been planned as a 5-day tournament, so when we booked our hotel and travel we were due to fly back on Monday 2nd April. However, when it became apparent that ticket sales were going through the roof, this was extended by a further day. We are still flying back tomorrow and will therefore miss the final day of the event, but you can follow all the action as unfolds on www.eptlive.com. If you don’t want to wait until the event is broadcast on television, tune in from 3pm to find out who wins.

Until the EPT restarts in the autumn, it’s time for me to cash my chips in and leave the poker room, but I’ll see you in Manchester for the 4th Leg of the GUKPT.

Jonathan Raab

1st April 2007