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Mohsin Charania was crowned The PokerStars Monte-Carlo®Casino European Poker Tour Grand Final champion tonight after the type of final that went exactly the way it should have done. Sure, the romantics wanted the first woman to reach an EPT Grand Final, Lucille Cailly, to win in front of a French rail looking for a reason to celebrate. But throughout the week Charania had the edge not just on Cailly, but on the field, becoming the Season 8 Grand Final champion tonight, earning €1,350,000.

Charania took the title after a brief heads-up, and what was a brief final table, with the blinds hoisted high after two long days prior. With play down to two a deal was struck (not as simple as it sounds, it took 20 minutes) and play continued. Charania won one, Cailly won another and so on, until Cailly found ace-king and Charania found queens. There was only one outcome and an uninterested board delivered the title to Charania.

EPT Grand Final Winner Mohsin Charania

“When I’m winning every time I’m all-in it’s of awesome benefit to me. I get to sleep in longer,” said Charania. “I thought they (his final table opponents) were pretty tough but I felt really good. I thought I was the best player going in luckily the cards helped me prove that.”

Cailly’s was a distinctively impressive performance. While others around her struggled to find a rhythm, Cailly was sure of herself, not letting the few setbacks she suffered disturb her focus. Instead she ploughed on, powered by a Francophile rail and a few Marlboros. It is the breakthrough result for the Frenchwoman and we’ll see more of her when the tour restarts in August.

Play goes heads-up

For the others they would do well to follow the lead set by Charania and Cailly.

Frenchman Bernard Guigon finished third after an impressive display of laddering. Every once in a while a player turns up at a final who seems oblivious to the demands of being on television, of being at a final table or playing in front of an audience. Guigon simply played the game he’d loved for decades and earned €545,000 for it. Unconventional, a little slow perhaps and not on a par with the winner, Guigon deserves a hat tip for the performance nonetheless.

It was all over in just six-and-a-half hours, kicking off at 1.30pm this afternoon with a one hour televised delay on EPTLive.

Lucille Cailly

At the start it had all been about Cailly, thanks mainly to the rail she’d amassed who had sourced a dozen blond wigs at €10 apiece, to support their heroine. Cailly thrived on it and the others could only dream of such encouragement.

Wigs on the rail

Play almost got through a level without an elimination until Daniel Gomez went first. With the blinds already steep for the Spaniard, he found himself with ace-queen and did what he had to do, except he ran it into the jacks of Rodrigo Caprioli and more importantly the kings of Sergio Castelluccio. Gomez got a queen on the flop but nothing more.

The final table

Following in seventh was Clayton Mozdzen, whose desire to win this week was never in doubt. The Canadian set off a string of rapid eliminations. He went when his ace-ten was toppled not by Catelluccio’s ace-ten but by Cailly’s pocket nines.

Clayton Mozdzen

The other Canadian at the final, Michael Dietrich followed. Charania found ace-king which swept aside Dietrich’s ace-nine. The dust had hardly settled when Caprioli was also busted. He found pocket queens while Castelluccio took him on with ace-eight. Nothing up to the turn; an ace though on the river.

This left four players who settled into a steady tempo, Charania leading, with Guigon holding on by tightening up even further.

Ultimately Castelluccio would go in fourth. He felt confident when he four-bet shoved with jacks and Cailly paused for an agonising period of time before calling with ace-queen. The flop changed nothing but the queen on the turn sent the Italian to the rail, while arming Cailly with the chips she’d need to take on Charania.

Sergio Castelluccio

It would be wrong to say Guigon came to life, but he doubled up. But his burst of energy could not last for long, and with ace-four he got his chips in, which Charania saw off with king-queen, the flop making him trips.

Bernard Guigon

Both heads-up players put the work in, and like we said, the romantics favoured the Cailly win. But Charania, whose record live begins to rival his online accomplishments, had the edge and merits his EPT Grand Final title, bringing a fantastic season to an end.

The final result:

1st – Mohsin Charania, PokerStars Qualifier, €1,350,000
2nd – Lucille Cailly, PokerStars Qualifier, €1,050,000
3rd – Bernard Guigon, €545,000
4th – Sergio Castelluccio, €400,000
5th – Rodrigo Caprioli, PokerStars Player, €315,000
6th – Michael Dietrich, PokerStars Qualifier, €245,000
7th – Clayton Mozdzen, PokerStars Qualifier, €185,000
8th – Daniel Gomez, €130,000

That’s the quick version, you can read the long version on our live coverage page, which also details all the pay-outs from the main event. For everything else check out the links below:

That brings an end to the EPT Grand Final main event, and the season. Well kind of. You can still follow the goings on in the €25,000 High Roller event which is reaching a crucial stage as we speak (and that’s without an hour delay). They play to a winner tomorrow.

Also tomorrow is the Tournament of Champions which you can watch in its entirety on EPT Live, complete with hole cards.

Charania celebrates

We’re now heading home to re-introduce ourselves to our wives and girlfriends, after a year of writing about people without wives or girlfriends. It was all rather excellent which suggests Season 9 should be too.

For that, we’ll see you in August. For now, it’s goodnight from Monaco.

All photography &copy Neil Stoddart

It’s happened again. There will be no Spanish winner of the The PokerStars Monte-Carlo®Casino European Poker Tour Grand Final. Jesus, donde esta mis zapatos!*

That became fact with the departure of Daniel Gomez in eight place ending, for another season, the prospect of a first Spanish champion. But there was little Gomez could do with his ace-queen, when the chips went in against Ricardo Capriolo’s jacks and Sergio Castelluccio’s pocket kings.

After the question “when will we have a first double winner”, the question “when will we have a first Spanish winner” is most asked, or at least it is of the Spanish media, who are prime targets to be wound up, particularly as Spain tends to win everything else.

Daniel Gomez

It’s the sixth event in which a Spaniard has fallen short at the final table in Season 8.
Dragan Kostic missed out in Barcelona, finishing second, although that was better than Raul Mestre, Tomeu Gomila and Juan Perez at that same final. Juan Manuel Pastor finished fourth in London, a feat matched by Guillem Usero in Prague. Ricardo Rodriguez made it to fifth on home soil in Madrid; Cesar Garcia reached sixth in Berlin.

It leaves seven at the final table, and means the Spanish will have to wait for another season for their winner. Home soil in Barcelona perhaps?

*We don’t know any Spanish expletives.

Eight players remain in the PokerStars Monte-Carlo®Casino European Poker Tour Grand Final, the last event of the tour’s eighth season. After some long days at the tables the final gets under way today, broadcast on EPT Live, subject to a one hour delay. Play starts at 1.30pm (CET) meaning from 2.30pm you’ll see all the action, including hole cards. You won’t miss a thing.

As a useful reference, all the action will be detailed here on the PokerStars Blog, with colour features to enhance the experience. For now you can familiarise yourself with the players returning today, with details of each of them below…

The EPT Trophy

Seat 1: Rodrigo “caprioli” Caprioli, 31, Sao Paolo, Brazil – 2,945,000
Caprioli is a PokerStars SuperNova Elite who bought into this year’s EPT Grand Final using Frequent Player Points – 850,000 of them. He has been playing poker since he was 12, and professionally since 2005. Having collected so many FPPs, Caprioli is in line for the same award bestowed upon Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier and Dario Minieri, a TAG Heuer watch, inscribed with the date he reached five million FPPS. Online, Caprioli mainly plays pot-limit Omaha cash games, while this is his fifth EPT and first EPT final table. He previously finished 16th at EPT London in Season 6, earning £19,000.

Seat 2: Bernard Guigon, 64, France – 4,900,000
Guigon is a pharmacist in Dakar, Senegal, and discovered draw poker in the 1980s where he was playing big cash games in the city. He switched to Texas hold’em three years ago but is no stranger to big buy-in events. He says poker is more than a hobby it’s a passion, Guignon admitting to being highly competitive. His best performance to date was fourth in a €1,000 World Series of Poker Europe event in Cannes last year, worth €50,000.

Seat 3: Michael Dietrich, 28, London, Ontario – PokerStars qualifier – 1,550,000
Dietrich, a housing contractor, started playing poker while in his second year at the University of Western Ontario, playing home games with friends. A year later, he started playing online and now describes himself as a semi-professional player, while keeping his main job is in construction.

His best live result to date came online, in February 2011, earning $135,000. He qualified for the EPT Grand Final via a 25,000 FPP satellite on PokerStars which got him a seat into a 125,000 FPP satellite. He won that, earning his trip here. Dietrich says he prefers playing online to live as it’s faster and he can play from home. For the last three years though he has mainly played tournaments. He has known fellow finalist Clayton Mozdzen for years and is pleased to see that he’s also on the final table.

Seat 4: Sergio “genio-ps” Castelluccio, 36, Avellino, near Naples, Italy – 1,410,000
Sergio Castelluccio is a musician and former music teacher. He took up poker four years ago, saying; “I’ve always had a passion for games, like chess – also and too many video games.” His best live result came on the PokerStars’ Italian Poker Tour, where he won the San Remo Main Event in August 2010, earning €200,000. He also finished 16th in the EPT Grand Final three years ago collecting €64,000 – one of his first ever live events.

Castelluccio is an EPT regular but this is will be first EPT final table. He plays a lot online but mainly cash games “apart from the Sunday majors when I’m at home”.

Seat 5: Mohsin “Chicagocards1″ Charania, 27, Chicago, Illinois – 2,215,000
Charania discovered poker through friends while studying finance at the University of Illinois. Since then he’s earned over $3.5 million playing online as “Chicagocards1″ and more than $500,000 playing live tournaments. In 2010, Charania won Event #20 in the PokerStars Spring Championship of Online Poker, where he plays as “sms9231″. The victory earned him $380,364, the biggest prize of his online career.

Charania’s first live cash came in 2008 in a $300 tournament at Caesars Palace, Las Vegas. Since then he’s racked up nine World Series cashes and six World Poker Tour scores, including the biggest payday of his career so far, a sixth-place finish at the 2010 World Poker Finals at Foxwoods Casino, good for $104,741.

Charania has one previous EPT cash, a €15,000, 46th-place run at EPT Deauville in February. Charania is already guaranteed the biggest result of his live career here in Monaco. Charania has spent the last two months traveling the live tournament circuit with close friend Faraz Jaka, who finished third in the 2012 PCA main event.

Seat 6: Daniel “Garnerus” Gomez, 28, Spain, PokerStars player, Supernova Elite – 2,665,000
Daniel is a professional poker player from Zaragoza who started playing online seven years ago and can now claim Supernova Elite status on PokerStars. Gomez is known as a high stakes cash game player, playing $5/$10 to $50/$100 limits, as well as the Sunday majors.

Gomez is a former chess champion and has a FIDE rating of 2230. His best live poker score to date was finishing fifth at the PokerStars-supported Estrellas Poker Tour event in Malaga last March, for €18,020. Other results include 23rd in the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure $2,000 no-limit event for $6,410 in January this year. For the past few months he’s been living in Bournemouth on the South Coast of England.

Seat 7: Clayton “slammedfire” Mozdzen, 28, from Winnipeg, Canada – PokerStars qualifier – 1,430,000
Mozdzen won his seat to the Grand Final in a €33 rebuy satellite on PokerStars. A familiar face on the live scene, he already has one EPT final table under his belt; EPT Warsaw, in Season 6 where he finished sixth for the equivalent of roughly $80,000, his biggest live cash to date. He has nearly $300,000 in live tournament winnings, including €20,000 for 14th place at EPT Madrid last month.

Mozdzen has also cashed at EPT San Remo and EPT Tallinn as well as the World Series, and in the North American Poker Tour Uncasville. He also has cashes at events in his native Canada.

Mozdzen is a SuperNova on PokerStars, scoring his biggest result when he came tenth out of 2,144 players in a 2009 World Championship of Online Poker event for $75,000. Mozdzen is being supported at the Grand Final by his girlfriend Alexa. The couple have already visited Italy and will head for a romantic break in Paris after the event.

Seat 8: Lucille Cailly – 29, Paris, France, PokerStars Qualifier – 2,865,000
Cailly got her introduction to poker five years ago when her room-mates started playing weekly sit and goes in their shared living room. Perhaps indicating a natural-born poker ability, Lucille quickly found herself booking a last-minute flight to Las Vegas to get over a break-up.

Cailly dabbled in poker journalism, live-updating EPTs and WPTs while honing her skills online. In 2010, a series of multi-table tournament successes persuaded her to jump straight in and become a full time pro.

Since then Cailly has played mainly online, earning the respect of her French peers as a true “grinder” as well as earning some serious money. Cailly’s best live result came at the now-defunct Cercle Wagram club in Paris, winning a €1,000 event worth €26,190. She has also cashed at the Deauville EPTs in both 2010 and 2012. A former epistemology student, Lucille lives in La Défense, near Paris.

From a few feet away, yesterday was something of a roller coaster for most. There were seven different chip leaders, one repeat leader and several others who went from top five to busted in the space of a few levels. One constant amid all of that was the last lady in the event, Lucille Cailly.

Cailly picked up exactly where she left off today, starting well. But then a hand came along that could prove pivotal to the Frenchwoman.

Lucille Cailly

“It was going pretty well until ten minutes ago,” she said at the break, between elegant drags on a cigarette. “I went from one million to two. Everything was going really well. And then I four bet all-in; pocket threes against a guy who was on tilt who had aces; and no three.

“Now I’m back on the average I guess. So that’s okay. Well, we’ll see.”

This is already the biggest cash for Cailly, now in the third year of a prosperous career in the game. But it’s only her third cash on the European Poker Tour (the other two coming in Deauville), a lack of experience perhaps which could lead to her departure?

Cailly, however, doesn’t come across as someone prepared to let this chance slip, even if this is new territory.

“It’s easy ‘cos it’s the semi-final of a huge tournament, you can’t tilt, you can’t do crap. You have to do good,” she said. “Because how often is it gonna happen?

She inhaled again on that wholesome fag.

“I’m okay,” she said. “Yeah. It’s gonna be okay.”

Click here for live updates from The PokerStars and Monte-Carlo® Casino EPT Grand Final

Dominating the Salle des Etoiles is the televised feature table, what with its neon stripes, giant screens, cameras and lights, with a smattering of people watching from its rail and on the two big screens, one at either end. It over shadows the two outer tables, although they still have cameras buzzing around them.

Tucked in between them is a small trestle table, at which two dealers sit with some pieces of paper, a few pens and a desk lamp. If the feature table is where players suspend reality and chase their dreams, this little table is where reality makes a dramatic reappearance and dreams are officially unmet. This is the pay-out desk.

It’s here that a week of tournament play comes to a close. Sure, it means financial compensation, but to come this close to the richest title in Europe makes for bitter disappointment.

It also marks another change. From being the centre of attention, with cameras following them and floor people shepherding them in all directions for interviews, players suddenly lose their allure. No longer needed, they’re stripped of their microphone (if they’re at the TV table), thanked for playing and escorted to collect their money. They get this at the little table with the table lamp and the two dealers.

Chips on Day 4, not those of John Andress

When John Andress busted it was suddenly his turn. He was guided from the TV table down the centre of the stage by a TV floor man waving his arms like a Landing Signals Officer (lollipop man) directing aircraft at an airport, ensuring the newly departed exited the stage in a camera friendly way.

The floor man had a job to do, removing his microphone as Andress, disappointed, explained it was his aces versus ace-ten, with a nine on the river making his opponent a straight. The floor man shook his hand but was needed to wire up his replacement.

Andress took a seat with the dealers who began to ask their questions. Both worked with their heads down scribbling away while Andress waited patiently. From his spot under the lights, a position of strength at the TV table, he now sat slumped, forward slightly, politely answering. Somehow, despite his success, it seemed an unfitting end to an exhausting week at the sharp end of European Poker. It’ll happen to 18 players before play ends today.

Click here for live updates from The PokerStars and Monte-Carlo® Casino EPT Grand Final