/ Matthew Pitt / 03 May 2011 / Leave a Comment 
The man they all have to catch
The San Remo leg of the ever-popular European Poker Tour has reached the final table and it promises to be an extremely entertaining affair, with the perfect blend of experienced professional poker players and rank amateurs alike.
Yesterday 24 players returned to the Casino San Remo safe in the knowledge that they all had at least €25,000 locked up but six hours later these 24 had been reduced to the final table of eight and each of the players who had survived with their chip stacks intact had seen their guaranteed payout massively increase to €81,950.
At the start of the day the eyes of the media were on Joe Cada, the 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event champion, who had finished Day 5 fifth in chips and in with a very realistic chance of adding an EPT gong to his WSOP win but he fell short of making it to the final table, busting out in 13th place at the hands of Max Heinzelmann. Cada was followed to the rail by British pro Andrew Teng, who was also eliminated at the hands of the aggressive Heinzelmann.
Local player Marco Bognanni exited in 11th place and when the last-woman standing, Xuan Liu took care of Antonio Venneri shortly afterwards the last nine players all joined up on the unofficial final table. Whilst the camera crews set up their equipment and the tournament staff moved the stacks of chips to the new table the players were sent on an impromptu 15-minute break but they will have wished they had not have bothered as when they returned they only played one more hand!
With blinds at 30,000/60,000/5,000a Costantino Russo opened from under the gun to 125,000 and when the action folded around to Luigi Pignataro in the big blind he decided the best course of action was to move all in for 850,000. Russ snap-called and turned over a pair of black aces, which were crushing the red eights of Pignataro. The final board ran out Kd-Jh-4c-4s-Kc and with that the tournament was paused for the last time before a champion will be crowned later today.
Leading the way is Rupert Elder, a member of the Blonde Poker forum and a popular figure in online poker circles. His 8,005,000 stack is just in front of Heinzelmann who has now made back-to-back EPT final tables after finishing as runner-up at ET Berlin just a few weeks ago. Someone to watch out for is Liu, the first female final tablist of Season 7 of the EPT. The last woman to reach a final table in an EPT Main Event was Liv Boeree who won this very tournament 12 months ago. Could Liu follow in her footsteps? Check back soon for all the action from the EPT San Remo final table.
Final table seat draw
Seat 1: Francesco De Vivo: 1,090,000 chips
Seat 2: Max Lykov: 1,495,000
Seat 3: Rupert Elder: 8,005,000
Seat 4: Max Heinzelmann: 7,885,000
Seat 5: Xuan Liu: 1,740,000
Seat 6: Roberto Spada: 4,775,000
Seat 7: Massimiliano Manigrasso: 2,000,000
Seat 8: Costantino Russo: 2,565,000
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