French player wins WPT Bucharest

04/03/2010

A 37-year-old French businessman, Guillaume Darcourt, took the honours in the World Poker Tour Romania tournament in Bucharest over the weekend.

The event was sponsored Gamebookers.com and took place at the Novotel Bucharest City Centre Hotel, with the six seat final table moving to a special location with a live audience.

Darcourt won Euro 125 846 and a $25 000 seat at the prestigious WPT World Championship at the Bellagio later this year.

161 players registered for the Euro 3000 + Euro 300 Main Event, in which the prize-pool paid 18 places from a total pool of Euro 449 450.

Darcourt had to survive a gruelling heads-up with German online ace Simon "Schnibl0r" Münz - a popular member of PokerStrategy.com - to win.

“This win is amazing,” said Darcourt. “I was eighth in chips after the first day and chip leader at the end of day two. I was running really good on day three too but started to slip away. One hand changed the whole tournament for me. I was up against AA with A9 but hit a straight. I will always remember that hand.”

Munz, who has started final table action in the chip leader space, was a good sport and saluted the skill of his opponent. “Darcourt deserved to win. I would have loved to have really attacked him in the heads-up but he just wouldn’t fold and I didn’t have enough chips,” he said.

“Winning the $25 000 WPT World Championship seat is incredible,” said Darcourt. “I have a full tournament schedule but to get a seat to such a prestigious tournament is wonderful.” Darcourt, who has three children aged 2, 7 and 10 now plans to spend some time relaxing at home. “The last three months have been three of the best of my life,” he added.

The final table comprised Darcourt and Munz, along with Eva Iosif and Abdula Atila from Romania, Jose De La Guardia of Panama and US player Joseph Ebanks.