Seat 3: Simon Wiciak, 30, France (22,875,000)
An accomplished online tournament pro, Simon Wiciak switched his focus to the live game a little more than a year ago and has demonstrated in a dominant display at EPT Barcelona that he has the skills in this environment too. He took over the chip lead on Day 4, kept it throughout Day 5 and heads into the final leading the way with six remaining.
Wiciak was a promising student at high school in his native La Rochelle, France, with particular specialization in maths. However, he was also a talented footballer and joined a specialist sport-studies college, where regular academic lessons complement at least 10 hours of football training per week. He progressed to be captain of the U-19 team and might have gone further, but opted instead to refocus on his studies, specializing now in engineering.
He had learned how to play poker with the football team, betting sticks of chewing gum in various changing rooms. But it was while he was employed in his first engineering job, for an industrial gases company Air Liquide, that he really found an appetite for the game. He soon found that he was making more money playing poker than in his day job and gave the life of the online pro a go.
He lived in Mauritius and Hungary as he played, becoming friends with many of the leading lights of French poker, including EPT final tablists Antoine Saout and Adrien Allain as well as former champ Jean Montury. After a successful summer at the WSOP this year, he is now committed to live poker and seems set to burnish his reputation after this performance in Barcelona.