Live tournament action has been good to German poker ace Philipp Gruissem in recent months, with a string of high value wins that has included a couple of coups over a million Euros, and on Friday he did it again in Monte Carlo, taking down the Euro 25,000 buy-in European Poker Tour Grand Final High Roller against tough opposition.
Due to a chop with runner up Scott Seiver at the heads up stage, Gruissem took home Euro 993,963 – not a bad return on his buy-in, and pushing him into the spotlight as the top German earner.
Counting re-ups, the entry field numbered 214 competitors, many of them big names in the game. By Thursday the field was down to a final table that comprised Gruissem and Seiver, along with poker luminaries like Davidi Kitai, John Juanda, Byron Kaverman, Martin Finger, Stephen Chidwick, Chenxiang Miao and Pascal Lefrancois.
When Kitai was eliminated by Gruissem at third Seiver and Gruissem went into a huddle to arrange a chop that would see the winner claim Euro 993,963 and the sponsor’s expensive watch, and the runner up Euro 857,637. The duo then agreed on an all-in blind to decide a winner. One hand later it was all over and the German had the big prize.
The other final table pay-outs looked like this:
3rd Davidi Kitai Euro 526,400
4th John Juanda Euro 426,800
5th Byron Kaverman Euro 337,650
6th Martin Finger Euro 256,400
7th Stephen Chidwick Euro 187,200
8th Chenxiang Miao Euro 136,900
9th Pascal Lefrancois Euro 113,250
With online career earnings of over a million Euros and live tournament bookings approaching Euro 9 million, Gruissem is proving hard to catch in terms of international career successes, where he has enjoyed 70 major online and 30 live tourney cashes.