Lucien Cohen Wins the 2011 PokerStars.fr EPT Deauville (�880,000)
It's been a swift and relatively painless final here in Deauville - least painful of all for 47 year old Parisian Lucien Cohen. The pest control magnate proved himself to be a real character, producing and sometimes consulting with several plastic toy rats over the course of the tournament, and frequently grandstanding and encouraging raucous celebrations among his railers, who were only too happy to oblige.
This is the first time that a French player has ever won an EPT on home turf, making Cohen's achievement particularly impressive. He battled through a field of 891 players including some of his country's finest poker players - Team PokerStars Pros Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier, Thomas Bichon and Arnaud Mattern all fell by the wayside before the rodent-loving amateur took the title.
It was also an extraordinarily tough final table that Cohen faced, including as it did such talent as Martin Jacobson, who was playing his third ever EPT final table and his second this season, as well as Kenny "SpaceyFCB" Hallaert and Canadian online pro Alex Wice, who has won the PokerStars Sunday Warm Up and placed third in last year's WSOP $2,500 World Championship Mixed Events 8 Game event. It was the elimination of Wice in third place with against Cohen's pocket queens that gave Cohen a huge heads up chip lead and ultimately led him to the title and the �880,000 first prize.
Many congratulations to all the finalists here in France. The EPT apparatus is being dismantled as we speak and will be reassembled in Copenhagen in three weeks' time. The PokerNews.com European live reporting team will be following them there, so until next month in Denmark, it's au revoir.