Winning a major live tournament is no easy feat so imagine how difficult it must be to win three of them on three different poker tours! That is exactly what Alexandre Gomes could do later today if he wins the EPT Grand Final Main Event.
Ever since Gavin Griffin won a World Series of Poker bracelet, a European Poker Tour title and a WPT Main Event, thousands of players have tried to emulate him and win the “Triple Crown.” Only of his peers, British pro Roland de Wolfe, has managed it but there are a few players who have two parts of the three required victories, Alexandre Gomes being one of them.
Up until just five years ago Gomes only played poker for fun with friends at home games in his native Brazil. In 2005 he graduated from Law school and became a partner in a corporate law firm but after discovering the many tournaments held on PokerStars he became a massive fan of poker and started to play on a regular basis.
After honing his skills in the online arena he decided to show off his skills at love poker, his first cash in a major tournament being for $994 in a $530 event back in October 2006 but his major breakthrough came in December of the same year when he came second in the $4,900 WSOP Circuit event at Atlantic City for $202,433. This gave Gomes the necessary bankroll to play in as many tournaments as he wished , though the next two years he did not cash once in a live tournament.
Then at the 2008 WSOP his barren spell was completely forgotten as he won his first bracelet in a $2,000 No Limit Hold’em tournament for a cool $770,540 then he followed that up in January 2009 with a fourth place finish at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure for $750,000. Now a fully fledged professional poker player Gomes was a regular figure on the poker circuit and in July 2009 he entered the $15,000 buy-in WPT Bellagio Cup and when the dust had settled he was the only player with chips in front of him and he picked up a career-best $1,187,670 and his second major title.
Today is Gomes’ best chance of winning that elusive Triple Crown as he has made the final table of eight players of the EPT Grand Final in Madrid. He will start the final table with 1,670,000 chips, which in layman’s terms equals around 20 big blinds and is enough to see him begin 5th in chips. He is by far the most experienced player at the final table and will be bitterly disappointed not to go on and win his third major title and complete the Triple Crown. Tune in tomorrow for a full report on the final table.
Final table seating plan
Seat 1: Eugene Yanayt: 2,420,000 chips
Seat 2: Tamas Lendvai: 1,655,000
Seat 3: Juan Maceiras: 3,150,000
Seat 4: Andrey Danilyuk: 2,645,000
Seat 5: Andrew Li: 1,210,000
Seat 6: Ivan Freitez: 5,995,000
Seat 7: Torsten Brinkmann: 1,875,000
Seat 8: Alex Gomes: 1,670,000
All tournament results and prize money amounts taken from the Hendon Mob Poker Database.
