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The richest event of the World Series of Poker Europe so far played to completion last night. Event 3 was a PLO tournament with a whopping 5,300 Euro buy-in and an incredibly stacked final table that included some of the best poker talent in the world, including Sam Trickett, WSOP bracelet winner Steve Billirakis, Sam Chartier of WSOP Circuit championship fame and Eoghan O’Dea of the 2011 WSOP November Nine.

Trickett held the chip lead when final table action began, and he quickly forced Eoghan O’Dea to the rail while growing his lead in the process. Sam Chartier was next to go, earning 26.6k Euro for his 8th place finish. Ramzi Jelassi began to build some momentum of his own, knocking out Erich Kollmann in the seventh place position and passing Trickett’s chip count. Jelassi’s dominance seemed unquestionable when he booted Konstantin Uspenskly in sixth place for just under 44k Euro.

Billirakis then started building his own chip stack, crippling Jerome Bradpiece to double up and eventually knocking him out in fifth place. This allowed Billirakis to leapfrog over Michele Di Lauro, who scored an impressive pot over Jelassi. Trickett ran horribly for the rest of the event, finally hitting the rail in fourth place for over 77k Euro thanks to Di Lauro. Billirakis now held the chip lead and, as fate would have it, kept it throughout the tournament.

Billirakis further improved his chances by dominating Jelassi in three-handed play, giving him four times as many chips as Di Lauro when heads-up play began. Billirakis was absolutely dominant during the final hands of the event, easily eliminating Di Lauro and scooping up the bracelet as well as 238k Euro. Di Lauro received 147k Euro for his impressive run.

The second event of the World Series of Poker Europe, a No-Limit Hold’em event with a 1,090 Euro buy-in, is currently into its second day of action, and no player is more dangerous at the moment than Roberto Romanello.

The day started with 104 surviving runners, and players started hitting the rail quickly, often in the day’s early levels of play. Peter Jetten was knocked out on the first hand, and he was soon followed by Richard Toth, Matt Waxman, Farzad Bonyadi and Dan Shak. Several of those players went on to join Event 3, a PLO tournament with a much higher buy-in of 5,300 Euro.

Several notables were eliminated towards the middle of the day, including Kevin MacPhee and Vanessa Selbst. After the money bubble broke, even more big names hit the rail, including WSOP final table contender Eoghan O’Dea, Dan Kelly, Toby Lewis, Nicolas Choulty, Tyler Kenney and McLean Karr.

Nine players remained at the day’s closing, with Gianluca Speranza of Italy leading the way with 757k chips. Andrew Hinrichsen is in second with 434k, and Roberto Romanello is just behind in third. Romanello is arguably the strongest contender remaining given his resume: he’s won both a WPT and EPT title in 2011, meaning that a bracelet in WSOPE Event 2 would give him a Triple Crown. Only four players in poker history have accomplished the same. Romanello would be even stronger if not for a late-day battle with Speranza, in which nearly half of his stack disappeared in a single pot.

Other final table contenders include Eric Baudry, Bernard Guigon, Tarcisio Bruno, John Eames and Nabil Nedjai. Only time will tell whether Romanello can come back from a 2:1 chip deficit and make poker history.

The World Series of Poker Circuit Main Event, played at the Horseshoe Southern Indiana, has come to a close, and poker veteran Robert Castoire has been named champion. Castoire received a first-place prize of over $107k after outlasting 312 other runners over the course of four days of action, including the Day 1a and 1b starting flights.

Castoire recorded one of the most impressive final table performances of the year on his way to WSOP Circuit glory. Shortly after heads-up play began, he faced a daunting 11:1 chip deficit. Thanks to some excellent play and undoubtedly a little luck, he fought back to claim the title.

Bernard Lee looked strong during final table play, but was crippled when his A-5 suited failed to improve after he pushed all-in against Mark Smith. Smith’s 10-9 suited became a pair on the flop, and Lee hit the rail a few hands later.

David Hegen and Thang Nguyen were next to go after they were dominated by Aaron Masey and Donavan Darland, respectively. Smith’s elimination came soon after when Castoire scored a straight thanks to a 9 on the river with K-Q hole cards and a 10-J-5-7 flop.

Darland was eliminated by Aaron Masey to make the game three-handed. This lasted for several hands, with players trading the chip lead in rotating fashion until Jacob Bazely called Massey’s A-9 with J-J. A 9 on the flop wasn’t enough to save Massey, and he headed to the cage to collect his $48k for third place.

In the final hand of the tournament, Bazely held K-J of queens while Castoire held Q-10 offsuit. A flop of K-J-3 gave a significant edge to Bazely, but an ace on the turn gave Castoire the nut straight. Another 10 on the river secured Castoire’s victory. Bazely received $66k for his impressive runner-up showing.

Last night on Twitter there was an odd exchange between Kathy Liebert (known for many odd exchanges on Twitter) and Michael Divita, who you may recall was barred from participating in the Epic Poker League Main Event after winning his way in through the Pro-Am tournament when it was learned that he was a registered sex offender.

While the barring of Divita raised few eyebrows, the way the Epic Poker League sent him packing did; basically handing him his $1,500 buy-in back even though the seat he rightly won was worth $20,000 –or as Adam Schoenfeld called it on DonkDown Radio, the Epic Poker League “freerolled” Divita, since he would never have been reimbursed his buy-in had he not won a seat.

Divita popped up on Twitter to reply to Liebert’s comment about Pat O’Brien where she called into question how the league could bar Divita, yet O’Brien (who has had his own public relations issues over some racy voicemails) is the host of the EPL broadcast: “Funny bar sex offenders from playing then hire one to do commentary. #standards,”

Divita the tweeted the following two messages in response, which point to a possible boycott of EPL events, that he claims 14 people have signed on to:

“There is a rumor that some of the top pro players are boycotting the December Epic Poker League events, unless they pay off that $20,000.00. Do you think that they really will boycott?”

“There was a ‘hotline’ set up 951-207-1100 just to deal with this situation. Several calls came in regarding the boycott, due to the treatment of the players in this, “Players First” Epic Poker League.”

I’d be very curious to see who are these 14 players? Are they card-carrying members of the Epic Poker League or just 14 guys in a casino that won’t play in the Pro/Am?

Another Sunday worth of major poker tournaments is in the books at online poker giant PokerStars, and four players logged off for the day at least $100k richer.

Three of those scores came in the Sunday Million, the most valuable regularly scheduled online poker tournament on the Internet. A total of 6,494 players paid buy-ins of $215 to generate a $1.3 million prize pool, easily besting the $1 million guarantee. Final table action came down to a four-way deal in which the top spots went to StuU_0905 (1st, $148k), MeatPounder (2nd, $157k), Skazo4nik777 (3rd, $119k) and francoianna (4th, $95k).

The PokerStars Sunday Warm-Up also managed to obliterate its $500k guaranteed prize pool by attracting 3,519 players (270 more than last week), all of whom paid $215 buy-ins to create $704k in available prize money. The event was ultimately won by LevotonKala, who defeated gtzy69 in heads-up play to win $110k. The runner-up received $82k for his performance.

The Bigger $162 (named for its buy-in) has been attracting a lot of big-name talent in recent months, and this past Sunday was no different. Jon “apestyles” Van Fleet came out on top of 1,387 runners, just as Dave Sands did last week. He received a cool $36.7k for his big win.

Another notable score belonged to terrific28, who took on 741 other competitors in the Sunday 500. The $500 buy-ins generated a $371k prize pool, and $67 of that money went directly to terrific28 for his win. Katison and pyszalek were paid out $48k and $36k for their runner-up finishes.

As usual, the largest tournament of the week in terms of player volume was the Sunday Storm, which attracted 31,822 players to pay buy-ins of just $11 each. The top three finishers struck a 3-handed deal in which they each received approximately $20k.