Nicolas Dumont Wins 2018 European Poker Tour Monte Carlo Main Event

31-year-old Nicolas Dumont spends a lot of time in the passenger seat as a driving instructor in Paris, France. Dumont was in the drivers seat the final table of the 2018 European Poker Tour Monte Carlo €5,300 no-limit hold’em main event, coming into the eight-handed final table with the chip lead and leaving with the title and the €712,000 ($854,400 USD) first-place prize. Dumont had not even planned on playing the tournament, and only entered when his friend Julien Perouse who had meant to play found himself unable to make the trip. Perouse offered to put Dumont into the event if he could find accommodations. The arrangement turned out quite profitable for both Dumont and Perouse, with the former outlasting a field of 777 total entries to become a EPT champion.

“I feel great,” Dumont told PokerStars reporters after coming out on top. “It’s my first EPT, my first win. What can I say? It’s crazy.”

This was only Dumont’s fifth recorded live poker tournament, having only roughly $20,000 in prior cashes to his name. While Dumont was relatively inexperienced, he was joined by several of poker’s biggest stars including German high roller Ole Schemion (8th – $81,960 USD), high stakes cash game crusher Patrik Antonius (6th – $166,860 USD) and 2016 Card Player Player of the Year award winner David Peters (4th – $278,400 USD).

Speaking of the POY, several of the players at this final table now find themselves in contention. Dumont earned 1,824 points as the winner of this event, enough to catapult him into 25th place in the "2018 Card Player Player of the Year rankings. ":https://www.cardplayer.com/poker-players/player-of-the-year/%20 With the 912 points he earned as the fourth-place finisher Peters has climbed into sixth place in the overall standings, with seven final table finishes and two titles won. Antonius was at his fifth final table, and his moved into 13th place on the POY leaderboard as a result of this latest deep run.

Dumont was able to knock out Antonius to keep him in contention as Honglin Jiang knocked out a number of players as the final table got down to short-handed action. He survived down to heads-up with Jiang holding just over a 4-to-3 chip advantage. After about 15 hands of heads-up action Dumont had clawed his way into the lead, and not long after that it was all over. With blinds of 100,000-200,000 Dumont limped in from the button and Jiang raised to 650,000. Dumont then three-bet to 2,200,000. Jiang moved all in for 10,075,000 and Dumont quickly called with the QQ. Jiang was in trouble with the 66. The board came down K7383 and Dumont’s pocket queens held up to earn him the pot and the title. Jiang took home $520,800 and 1,520 POY points as the runner-up. He moved into 30th place in the POY race after his third final-table finish of 2018.

Here is a look at the payouts and POY points awarded at the final table:

Winner photo credit: Neil Stoddart / Poker Stars.

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