A French businessman who plays more for the love of poker than the prize money won the PokerStars European Poker Tour (EPT) title in Warsaw, Poland on October 26th, 2009. Christophe Benzimra, who defeated Italian poker pro Alfio Battisti in the heads-up showdown to win the Polish stop of the EPT. Benzimra won a total of 360,000 euros in 1st place cash prize.
The Frenchman said that he is not a professional poker player and he just play for fun. The proprietor of a Plexiglass factory in Bucharest, Romania, the 47 year-old businessman started playing poker just three years ago and has participated in almost every European Poker Tour over the past two years.
The EPT Warsaw win represents his first cash in. The event, which was held at the Casinos Poland at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, the 4th edition of European Poker Tour Warsaw attracted 203 poker players creating more than 1.1 million euros prize pool. Considering the event is not televised, the EPT Warsaw is usually the least attended European Poker Tour stop.
Team PokerStars Pro Luca Pagano, who shattered his own records by reaching a 5th European Poker Tour final table and recording his 12th cash-in, finished in 4th place. Although he has yet to win a European Poker Tour title, Pagano's finish pushed him past fellow Team PokerStars Pro Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier on the European Poker Tour all-time Tournament Leader Board.
Oleksandr Vaserfirer, who started the final table with the chip lead, finished in 3rd place. Ukrainian Ruslan Prydyk finished in 5th place and Canadian poker player Clayton Mozdzen, one of thirty-three PokerStars qualifiers in Warsaw, finished in 6th place. Russian poker pros Alexander Klimashin and Anatoly Gurtovoy finished in 7th and 8th place respectively.
EPT Warsaw also included a nine-man High Roller event, won by Dario Minieri of Team PokerStars Pro. Next up on the PokerStars European Poker Tour is EPT Vilamoura which is set on November 17th, 2009-November 22nd, 2009 in Portugal.
11/04/2009 23:09 PM