All in all, it did not seem like the most difficult of days for Mohsin Charania. The Illinois resident began final table play at the European Poker Tour (EPT) Grand Final in the middle of the pack and stayed comfortably in contention until finding the right time to make his move. In the end, he defeated Lucille Cailly heads-up to take the title, €1.35 million, and a free seat into Tuesday’s Tournament of Champions.
Charania began the day with 2.215 million chips, part of a group of four players all in the 2 million range, but well behind chip leader Bernard Guigon, who had a giant stack of 4.9 million. About halfway through, he leapt up into the chip lead and put everyone on notice that he was going to be there until the end. Sergio Castelluccio, who was the chip leader at the time, raised to 240,000 pre-flop with pocket 7’s and Charania three-bet it with pocket Kings. Castelluccio made the call and the two saw a flop of 4-3-3. Charania followed up with a 420,000 chip bet and Castelluccio called once again. It was the same when the 9 was dealt on the turn, this time for 720,000. Then, when the 6 was dealt on the river, Charania upted the ante again, betting 1.38 million. After agonizing over his decision, Castelluccio finally made yet another call, only to see the bad news when his opponent flipped over his cards.
From there, Charania was pretty much on cruise control, even though he didn’t retain the chip lead throughout the rest of the tournament. It was close between Charania and Cailly going into heads-up and probably because of this, the two discussed a deal before the one-on-one match began. They ended up coming to an agreement where Charania would receive €1.150 million of the combined first and second place purse, Cailly would receive €1.050 million, and they would play it out for the remaining €200,000, title of EPT Grand Final Champion, and all that comes with it.
Heads-up only lasted five hands. On the fifth hand, both players ended up getting it all-in pre-flop, and no wonder: Cailly held A-K and Charania had Q-Q. The board ran out all low cards, giving no help to an obviously devastated Cailly, and handing the EPT Grand Final championship to Mohsin Charania.
This is Charania’s first major live tournament title and second win overall in his career. This past November, he won the €2,000 No Limit Hold’em Turbo Bounty event at EPT Loutraki, banking €24,850. The EPT Grand Final win more than quadrupled his lifetime earnings on the live tournament circuit, taking him up to $2,285,344 (when accounting for currency conversion) for his career.
European Poker Tour Grand Final – Final Table Results
1. Mohsin Charania – €1,350,000
2. Lucille Cailly – €1,050,000
3. Bernard Guigon – €545,000
4. Sergio Castelluccio – €400,000
5. Rodrigo Caprioli – €315,000
6. Michael Dietrich – €245,000
7. Clayton Mozdzen – €185,000
8. Daniel Gomez – €130,000
