Just a few days after the climax of the World Series of Poker Europe event, another big poker tournament was played to a finish in London.  The second leg of the European Poker Tour came to the capital with the EPT London event held at the Grosvenor Victoria Casino. 

Michael Martin of the USA was the victor in the main event defeating a strong field of 596 competitors that included, Chris Ferguson, Bertrand “Elky” Grospellier, Joe Hachem, Annette Obrestad.  Also making appearances were former tennis Wimbledon favourite Boris Becker and the 2006 main event winner Victoria Coren.  Becker together with Coren appeared on the BBC’s Breakfast News programme before the event to give it some publicity and promote poker in general.

Many of the players just mentioned didn’t survive day 1 and none of them were able to make it to the final table.  Martin went all the way to defeat Sweden’s Michael Tureniec in the heads-up to claim the title, trophy and a cool £1 million.

The final table standings were:

Michael Martin (USA) - £1,000,000
Michael Turuniec (Sweden) - £525,314
Marcin Horecki (Poland)   - £303,439
Eric Liu (Canada)        -£234,920
Phillippe D’Auteuill (France) - £195,766
Alan Smurfit (Ireland) - £153,351
Johannes Strassmann (Germany) - £120,723
Antony Lellouche (France) - £81,569

      
This year, a High-Rollers event dubbed “The £1 million Showdown” was added to the bill at the London leg of the EPT.  It had a £20,000 buy-in with many of the players knocked out from the main event also taking part in this new competition, as it began as the main event was concluding with the final table.  It was won by Canadian Jason Mercier who made a big name for himself in last year’s tour.

Mercier was one of four Canadians to make it to the final table which included his namesake Isabelle Mercier who was the last remaining lady left in the competition. 

Jason Mercier started in third place at the beginning of the final table trailing behind John Juanda and the then chip leader Peter Jetten.  However, it was Juanda and Mercier who would progress to the heads-up.     

Juanda was looking for a London double after capturing another WSOP bracelet by winning the WSOPE main event just two days earlier.  At the beginning of the heads-up final, Juanda had double the amount of chips, of Mercier.  On the very first hand though, the tables were turned and Mercier started to take control of the proceedings.  He never looked back and eventually knocked out Juanda to win the title, trophy and £516,000.



Here is the result of the final table:

Jason Mercier (Canada) - £516,000
John Juanda (USA) - £327,000
Michael Watson – (Canada) £241,000
Peter Jetten (Canada) - £189,000
Scotty Nguyen (USA) - £137,500
Isaac Haxton (USA) - £103,000
Masaaki Kagawa (Japan) - £86,000
David Benyamine (France) - £59,000
Isabelle Mercier (Canada) - £51,000

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