It took four days for Mats Iremark to defeat the rest of the 434-strong player pool in the European Poker Tour's (EPT) French Open, which took place late in the week at the Casino Barrieere de Deauville in Deauville, France. With his emergence from the the woodwork, the unknown Iremark defeated several illustrious poker pros, including Marcel “The Flying Dutchman" Luske, Ram Vaswani of the Hendon Mob, Francophone Isabelle “No Mercy" Mercier, and 2004 World Series of Poker champion Greg “Fossilman" Raymer. While Mercier and Vaswani both finished in top positions, Luske was finished early on in the competition, and Raymer was the very first poker player to bust out.

For his victory in the €4,000 buy-in French Open, Iremark took the €480,000 top prize, and also won entry into the €10,000 EPT Grand Final in Monte Carlo. In addition, and more interestingly, the 23-year-old Iremark also won a lifetime of free socialized health care to keep him healthy through the undoubtedly many years of poker play ahead of him.

Source:  Poker777 Staff

Sunday, 12 February 2006