Thursday, 28th March 2024 15:45
Home / Uncategorized / EPT9 Prague: Guillaume Rivet wins the Eureka High Roller for €89,200

Guillaume Rivet continues in the rich vein of EPT form being produced by French Canadians on the EPT by winning the Eureka High Roller.

It must be have been an intimidating sight for Robert Haigh last night. Across the table from him sat not only Guillaume Rivet and a large chip stack but also a large group of French Canadians. Let’s get this down, Haigh is no slouch having racked up $138,113 in live winnings, but when you know you’re out-stacked against someone that includes among their large rail Team PokerStars Pro Jonathan Duhamel (WSOP winner and 7th on the all-time money list with $11,062,192) and Marc-Andre Ladouceur ($961,468 and winner of the IPT High Roller at EPT Sanremo for €132,400) you’ve got to know you’re in trouble.

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Guillaume Rivet and friends

Rivet (French): from a diminutive of Old French rive ‘(river) bank’, ‘shore’ (see Rives).

Haigh, who is a known player in the German poker community (despite the fact that he know lives in the UK) and won a €1,000 side event at the Estrellas, held on in a prolonged heads-up but things just didn’t work out for him.

Rivet min-raised the button to 40,000, Haigh called. Both players checked the 5J2 flop before Haigh checked the Q turn. Rivet bet 32,000 and Haigh called. Rivet pushed out a large bet on the 9 river. Haigh called, for more than a quarter of his remaining stack and was shown Q7. It was good. Haigh refused to bleed out but when Rivet found a pair of black tens the tournament was settlled.

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Robert Haigh (in more winning times, centre)

Event #G, 8-9 December
Buy-in: €2,000
Game: NLHE
Players: 195
Prize pool: €360,750

1. Guillaume Rivet, Canada, €89,200
2. Robert Haigh, Germany, €59,200
3. Mikael Erixon, Sweden, €36,800
4. Dmitry Vitkind, Russia, €28,100
5. Tomasz Cybulski, Poland, €21,400
6. Michel Abecassis, France, €15,300
7. Dikovic Dejan, Bosnia & Herzegovina, €12,200
8. Ofer Shechter, Israel, €9,200
9. Toby Lewis, UK, €7,300
10. Jacob Toole, USA, €7,300
11. Rhys Jones, UK, €6,100
12. Philippe Ktorza, France, €6,100
13. Jonathon Driscoll, Canada, €5,200
14. Kyle Frey, USA, €5,200
15. Valdo Banicevic, Montenegro, €4,560
16. Jan Bendik, Slovakia, €4,560
17. Markku Koplimaa, Estonia, €4,200
18. Bandar Alireza, UK, €4,200
19. Sebastian Gohr, Germany, €4,200
20. Srpsko Vukomanovic, Serbia, €4,200
21. Christian Jeppsson, Sweden, €3,850
22. Martin Jacobson, Sweden, €3,850
23. Craig McCorkell, UK, €3,850
24. Martin Staszko, Czech Republic, €3,850

Rivet started Day 2 top of the chip stacks with 25 players remaining and managed to convert it to the win. Guiding/ramming/bludgeoning a chip lead from three tables out to close doesn’t happen as much as you might think.

“The bubble just lasted forever so I built a huge chip stack because people didn’t want to bust. That’s pretty much where I got my chips. I’ve been pretty lucky throughout the tournament and I’m just glad that I could close it,” said Rivet.

“To be honest, there’s so much luck in tournaments. Even if we were – and I don’t think that we are – the best in the world we still wouldn’t win that often,” he said, in reference to the string of great results the Québécois have been posting.

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Rivet solo (blatantly getting ready for his profile pic)

It’s a nice touch of humility from someone who just scored the largest score of their career, and who had to get past players late on including EPT regular Dmitry Vitkind, EPT winner Toby Lewis and – a couple of players that he picked out as being particularly tough – Martin Jacobson and fellow Canadian Jonathon Driscoll.

“And French Phillipe,” chipped in Ladoceur from the other side of the photoshoot.

“Yes, French Phillipe,” said Rivet.

French Phillipe is presumably Philippe Ktorza who finished in 12th (who was more than a little unhappy having his AJ ‘cracked’ by KK getting it on a 28A flop).

Although it is Rivet’s largest live cash the 22-year-old has done better in the past thanks to a runner-up finish in a SCOOP event for $204,000. Don’t be surprised to see more of him in the future (either at a final table or railing another French Canadian to yet another Red Spade trophy).

Click through to see all side event results or the live reporting, news and interviews of the main event here. Follow the @PokerStarsBlog Twitter account to keep up to date wherever you are.

is a staff writer for the PokerStars Blog.

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