Thomas Eychenne finds first live victory in EPT Barcelona Main Event

"It feels amazing," he said. "I'm struggling to come down from the cloud I'm on right now. It's an amazing feeling. I have to enjoy it because life moves quickly. These moments are very precious. I'm just enjoying this."

Surprise rail fuels the fire

For a game played by oneself, big final tables often provide an opportunity for friends, family, and supporters to turn out as support otherwise infrequently seen in the poker tournament landscape. Eychenne received such support from some unexpected visitors. 

Eychenne's rail flew in from Paris to spur him to victory

"It means a lot," Eychenne said, looking at his rail. "They're long-time friends that have nothing to do with poker. It was a nice surprise to see them today; they came from Paris. I thank them a lot, it was really nice."

Turning the attention to said railbirds, they relished the opportunity to cheer on their long-time friend in his historic victory.

"We came to support him," one said. "To give him strength. He is very talented, and he works a lot. It was one of the biggest performances of his career, so we had to come."

As far as plans tonight, there were mixed plans amongst the group.

Eychenne is finally a live tournament winner.

"We'll see," said Eychenne. 

"We're going out, for sure," said one of the friends. "And Thomas is going to pay," they all laughed.

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A dominant heads-up match

Eychenne came into the final table second in the chips just behind his eventual heads-up opponent, Sebastian Ionita. The two leaders survived the final table to remain as the last two standing, eventually reaching a deal during heads-up play. 

Eychenne put on a dominant display of heads-up prowess against Sebastian Ionita

With similar stacks, they chopped the prize pool evenly, leaving another €100,000 and the trophy to play for. During the deal discussion, Eychenne made it clear that heads-up play was his specialty. That wasn't an overstatement, because his prowess in one-versus-one poker was soon on clear display. Once that deal was set, Eychenne put his game into another gear to dominate the heads-up match in pursuit of his first-ever title. 

Eychenne won pot after pot to open up a substantial lead over the Romanian. For the final hand, it was 'domination nation' to end it all.

Eychenne finished the job to win his first-ever live tournament.

At the 600K-big-blind level, Ionita limped the button with . Eychenne raised to 2.4M. Ionita jammed for 14.45M to see the quick call from the better ace. The board ran out king-high for Eychenne, and he rode Big Slick to victory. 

EPT Barcelona Main Event final table results

*Denotes heads-up deal

^{Images courtesy of PokerStars/Danny Maxwell.}