PokerStars Ambassador Mestre Trails Binder at EPT Monte-Carlo Main Event Final Table

Sometimes, the penultimate day of an EPT Fundamental Occasion is a tense affair, with ebbs and flows and the chip lead altering palms. If that was alleged to be the story on Day 5 of this 12 months’s EPT Monte-Carlo €5,300 Fundamental Occasion, no person instructed Bernhard Binder, who carved out a story of his personal by going wire-to-wire and ending the day precisely the place he began, on the prime of the chip counts.

Binder will enter the ultimate day with a stack of seven,250,000, over 20 large blinds away from second-placed Raul Mestre, with the PokerStars Group Professional member bagging 4,525,000.

Nonetheless, he actually did not let the magnitude of the event have an effect on him; answerable for 4 of the day’s knockouts, the Austrian spent virtually the complete day on the prime of the leaderboard. Owing to some unfavourable runouts, Binder noticed his lead slip away late within the day, nevertheless it was short-lived, and he remained unfazed all through.

“It’s event poker, there are at all times ups and downs,” Binder instructed PokerNews after bagging up for the night time. “You simply want to regulate to your new state of affairs; that’s all you are able to do.”

EPT Monte-Carlo Fundamental Occasion Closing Desk Seating Draw

Day 5 Motion

With simply 20 gamers returning for the penultimate day, the tone was set early, as chips flew and dangerous beats had been dished out at an alarming charge.

Within the very first shuffle of the day, Miguel Franco was pressured to vacate his seat virtually as quickly as he had sat in it. Having bought his quick stack all in preflop in glorious form, he ended up with a nasty beat story to take residence together with his Twentieth-place end.

One desk over, Ognyan Dimov’s fortune landed on the opposite aspect of the coin, discovering a two outer on the river to outlive. 



The ugliest of the early exchanges was but to return, although, as Laurent Polito performed a tournament-defining pot. Having put all the cash in preflop with pocket aces, his opponent improved to quad jacks, leaving the Frenchman with lower than one small blind. Quickly after, he was eradicated in nineteenth place.

All instructed, by the tip of the opening stage, 1 / 4 of the returning subject had already been eradicated, together with Mehdi Chaoui (seventeenth). By the second break, the sector had been whittled down to simply 11 gamers following the exits of Day 2 chip chief Rodrigo Selouan (14th), the final remaining former EPT Fundamental Occasion champion Ognyan Dimov (thirteenth), and serial EPT Fundamental Occasion casher Jason Wheeler (eleventh).

Subsequent to fall, Xavier Cortazar, whose earlier quads had saved him alive within the event, couldn’t summon one other miracle escape. This time, he bumped into one more expensive preflop confrontation, bringing his run to an finish in tenth place, falling one place shy of the ultimate desk. 



With the ultimate desk set, there was one ultimate elimination in retailer earlier than the day ended. Befitting of the day, it was chip chief Binder who dispatched Leonard Maue to the rail in ninth place, leaving simply eight gamers to bag chips and return to the ultimate day.

Every of the returning gamers has now locked up €99,450, and following the subsequent elimination, all remaining gamers shall be taking a look at six-figure scores.

In fact, the gamers will all have their eyes firmly mounted on the €825,000 first-place prize that comes alongside the Golden Shard trophy and the status of being topped an EPT Fundamental Occasion Champion.