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Home / Uncategorized / EPT10 Grand Final: Dermot Blain beats world class field to win €200,900

Dermot Blain today claimed side event glory at the PokerStars and Monte-Carlo® Casino European Poker Tour Grand Final beating a slew of top players to claim the €200,900 winner’s purse.

Blain topped a tough final table that included EPT winners David Vamplew and Mike “Timex” McDonald, EPT10 leader board contender Thomas Muhlocker, EPT London runner-up Georgios Karakousis, Canadian grinder Max Greenwood and legendary French singer and poker player Patrick Bruel.

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Full Tilt Poker Tour Ambassador Dermot Blain

“When we came back with fifty-five (players remaining) there was Mike McDonald, Sorel Mizzi, Liv (Boeree) were still there,” said Blain. “There were twenty world class players. Awesome players like Justin Bonomo and Max Altergott. It was amazing.”

Today’s score is the Irishman’s third-largest career cash, but very welcome as his biggest win was almost five years ago, an APPT Macau title in 2009 for HK $4,194,000 (US $541,000). It’s been a long time in the coming, explained Blaine, “I literally had – no joke, Jake – between fifteen and twenty 20k scores, you know. It’s been frustrating with bubbles and near misses. To get a huge one like this, 200k, is amazing especially in Monte Carlo with such a sick field.”

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Doing a win at EPT Prague win

Players on the UK and Ireland Poker Tour (UKIPT) will know Blaine pretty well. He’d been travelling the UK and European circuit well before he was picked out to be a Full Tilt Poker Tour Ambassador. While sponsorship deals do of course carry many benefits, including some tournament buy-ins, it could easily be conceived that it also adds some extra pressure to perform .

“It is a little bit of factor for me,” said Blain. “I remember that someone did an interview with the PokerStars guys and some of them said that they did feel it. I actually feel like it’s a bit of extra motivation, like an extra five, ten percent. You want to do it for the brand and it looks better. It’s a motivator for me.”

That extra five to ten percent obviously came in useful, but not as useful as a spiked king against EPT regular Andrew Chen. “I got pretty lucky in one pot where I made a bad play when I four-bet all-in with king-jack,” said Blain, talking about the hand that bust Chen. “I’d had aces cracked and there was a little frustration. I got there against queens. I spiked a king and that settled me down. I then got things flowing and made a lot of hands.”

The PokerStars.tv video crew also caught up with Blain after his win. Click on the video below to see what Blain had to say to Sarah Grant.

EPT10 Grand Final, event #27
Date: April 28-30, 2014
Buy-in: €5,300
Game: NLHE
Players: 187
Prize pool: €906,950

1. Dermot Blain, Ireland, Full Tilt Poker Ambassador, €200,900
2. Aslan Daurov, Russia, €135,600
3. Patrick Bruel, France, €93,350
4. David Vamplew, UK, €76,100
5. Thomas Muhlocker, Austria, €60,600
6. Georgios Karakousis, Greece, €46,600
7. Max Greenwood, Canada, €33,900
8. Mike McDonald, Canada, €24,600
9. Carlos Chadha, Canada, €20,300
10. Ariel Adda, UK, €17,250
11. Artem Litvinov, Russia, €17,250
12. Liv Boeree, UK, Team PokerStars Pro, €14,950
13. Alexander Shelukhin, Russia, €14,950
14. Oleh Okhotskyi, Ukraine, €13,600
15. Alex Dovzhenko, Russia, €13,600
16. Yves Boschetti, Switzerland, €12,250
17. Charles Davies, UK, €12,250
18. Didier Pitcho, France, €10,900
19. Sebastian Trisch, Germany, €10,900
20. Akin Tuna, Germany, €10,900
21. Dori Yacoub, Lebanon, €10,000
22. Bartolomeo-Fulvio Tato, Italy, €10,000
23. Sam Chartier, Canada, €10,000
24. Jeffrey Rossiter, Australia, €9,050
25. Sam Greenwood, Canada, €9,050
26. Candido Goncalves, France, €9,050
27. Sergi Reixach, Spain, €9,050

Click through to live updates, features and interviews from the EPT Grand Final Main Event and the EPT Grand Final Super High Roller. You can also check out all the EPT Grand Final side event results.

is a staff writer for the PokerStars Blog.

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