Deauville, on the north French coast is known as the "queen of the Norman beaches". It is an “en vogue” holiday resort for the international jet set, not unlike Monte Carlo on the south coast. It is perhaps best known in popular culture for it’s probable inspiration of Ian Fleming’s Casino Royale novel and first played host to the European Poker Tour from Feb. 14 to 19, 2005 when a remarkable story unfolded at the final table.
Friends from childhood in the U.S. Brandon Schaefer and Carl Olsen found themselves not only in the final nine of the €2,000 buy in event but ultimately heads up with Schaefer triumphing over the field of 243 to beat Olson.
Indeed the U.S. took the top four spots in Deauville in season one and Schaefer would go on to claim second place in the Grand Final in Monte Carlo at the end of the season for €350,000.
With a total prize pool of €468,000 the top 10 payouts in season one were:
Brandon Schaefer (USA) — €144,000
Carl Olson (USA) — €80,000
Mark Ristine (USA) — €40,500
Justin Bonomo (USA) — €31,500
Jeremy Tuckmann (UK) — €27,000
Bob Coombes (UK) — €22,500
Peter Eichhardt (Sweden) — €18,000
Luca Pagano (Italy) — €13,500
Sami Torbay (France) — €9,000
Keith Hawkins (UK) — €5,400
Season two saw things expand with the buy in doubled to €4,000 and 434 players attend in early February 2006 creating a prize pool of €1,600,800.
The first prize of €490,000 was bigger than the total prize pool for season one and this time it was Europe which dominated with Swede Mats Iremark taking top spot over a host of recognizable names that made this one of the most fascinating EPT final tables in the history of the event.
The top ten cashes were:
Mats Iremark (Sweden) — €490,000
Mark Boudewijn (Netherlands) — €259,000
Kirill Gerasimov (Russia) — €155,000
Theo Jorgensen (Denmark) — €118,300
Ram Vaswani (UK) — €97,700
Patric Martensson (Sweden) — €76,800
Isabelle Mercier (Canada) — €60,800
Stuart Nash (UK) — €43,500
Micky Wernick (UK) — €26,400
Seasons three and four of the EPT skipped this quiet seaside town but the event has returned for season five with a buy in of €5,000 with a cap of 600 players so check back at CardPlayer.com regularly from noon local time on Tuesday Jan. 20 for live updates over this five day event.
for the international jet set, not unlike Monte Carlo on the south coast. It is perhaps best known in popular culture for it’s probable inspiration of Ian Fleming’s Casino Royale novel and first played host to the European Poker Tour from Feb. 14 to 19, 2005 when a remarkable story unfolded at the final table.
