Tim Reilly wasn't a known face on the European Poker Tour before the start of EPT Deauville but, after some fine performances on the EPTLive webcast and the small matter of being heads-up in the €10,300 High Roller, we expect to see a lot more of the 30-year-old.

Hailing from Boston, Massachusetts (that's in the USA, just in case you didn't know) Reilly started playing tournaments in anger about a year-and-a-half ago and has racked up some modest scores totalling $131,671. He's already smashed that here after a 90th place finish in the Main Event for €9,700 and the guaranteed €180,000 that second place pays out in the High Roller. It's €313,000 for the win. Not bad for someone who is relatively new to tournaments. You can check the live updates here.

Poker pro Tim Reilly claims he loaned Nick Palma money on multiple occasions but hasn’t been paid back. These forms of debt disputes over makeup and other backing agreements are common in poker. Tim Reilly has 767 posts on their Instagram profile. Follow their account to see all their photos and videos.

Tim Reilly Poker Instagram Profiles

783 Followers, 543 Following, 183 Posts - See Instagram photos and videos from Tim Reilly (@timreillypoker). This week, we have 1975 Barry Greenstein, Tim Reilly with a helpful poker cheat sheet, travel tips from Maria Ho, and Farah Galfond shedding baby weight.

'I started playing tournaments about a year and a half ago. I played cash recreationally for a few years and then started playing for a living about a year-and-a-half before Black Friday happened in America,' said Reilly, who bears more than a passing resemblance to Ryan Gosling.

Like many others he made the switch over to live poker shortly after and now faces Vojtech Ruzicka heads-up for the EPT Deauville €10,300 High Roller title. Things, you could say, have gone pretty well on that front but Reilly won't find his Czech opponent easy to overcome. Ruzicka is a highly regarded player who chopped the 2011 WCOOP Main Event. He'll be no pushover.

The American almost busted in third for €105,700 when he got it all-in with A♣K♣ against Frenchman Alexandre Reard's pocket eights. Reilly flopped a king and held. Reard went to the rail shortly after, guaranteeing Reilly a minimum additional €75,000. That's a hell of a coin-toss.

'Yup, I've lost some pretty big flips but that's definitely the biggest one (I've been in),' Reilly told the PokerStars Blog during the last break.

And he's not just talking about the money either, that flip could literally be life-changing.

'Right now I'm kinda travelling. I moved out the country to Amsterdam to get relocated and set up on PokerStars. I was actually talking about where I'm going next last night and I decided to wait for the next couple of days because I figured a lot could change. I was six-handed in this and it could change my trip massively, you know.

'I might actually - not take time off - but not grind so hard and just play the bigger tournaments. After Sanremo I started getting a little more selective and not playing everything. I like the deep stacked good value events, I'm not so good at the turbos. I like the chips to be deeper,' said Reilly.

His claim certainly seems to be credible. In the earlier days of the EPTLive webcast here Reilly really impressed and was involved in arguably the most fascinating hand to have played out all week in a clash between him and Team PokerStars Pro Vanessa Rousso (which you can watch and read Vanessa's take on the hand here). Reilly's heard plenty about it.

'Yeah, I've seen it. I like Vanessa a lot, she's a great person but I thought it was absolutely suicidal of a bluff, which is why I folded because when she flats almost 5k with less than 13k back if she doesn't have two kings in her hand I don't... her line was so polarised... I think that she had king-five, that's what I would suppose, and turning that into a bluff.

'I don't expect her to expect me to fold very often and when she calls out of position as much as she plays she has to have it. She was trying to rep so thin it's almost good-bad. It's bad but in this spot it was good because I could read that she was saying, 'I have two kings, nothing else.' It was two kings or not and at that point she's got to be crazy to flat this bet without it. I don't know, I've been getting a lot of shit from my friends,' said Reilly with a smile.

Win or lose heads-up Reilly should be smiling a lot. Not only has he bagged some €200,000 - and possibly more - but he's won a lot of fans here this week. We certainly hope to see more of the boy from Boston on the EPT.

Reilly also scored a couple of entries on The EPT Quote Board.

Click through to live coverage of the EPT Deauville Main Event or you can take a look at the High Roller reports. Check out all the festival results from EPT Deauville. Follow the @PokerStarsBlog Twitter account to keep up-to-date with all the EPT action.

Rick Dacey is a staff writer for the PokerStars Blog.

A Twitter war broke out this week after Nicholas Palma was accused of cheating backers out of winnings, resulting in a wild goose chase prank designed to embarrass the serially-accused scammer…

Tim Reilly Poker Instagram Page

The public humiliation arose after Chicago pro Ralph Massey posted a series of tweets, initially asking fans and followers to vote on whether he should out a ‘well-known scammer/thief’…

The resounding ‘yes’ led to him naming Nicky Palma, a pro with previous for allegedly scamming backers out of money and much more serious accusations.

Tim Reilly Poker Instagram Hack

As we reported in 2018, Palma was accused of by fellow pro Tim Reilly of failing to pay back money owed from his staking deal.

Matters took a turn for the worse for Palma when his poker-playing ex-girlfriend Stephanie Hubbard accused him of sexual assault, battery and theft.

Palma publicly refuted the allegations, Reilly at least happy when Palma started to pay back his debts.

The previous year had seen Palma and Ralph Massey’s brother Aaron reportedly involved in a fist-fight at Foxwoods casino.

Strangely enough, the brawl was said to be over Palma’s apparent distaste at Aaron Massey not revealing Zohair Karim’s dubious past of scamming. Both men were said to have been kicked out of the casino and given 24-hour bans.

In this latest Palma incident, the New York pro posted, then apparently deleted, a number of offensive replies to Ralph Massey, although they were preserved for posterity by Massey…

Tim Reilly Poker Instagram Posts

In retaliation, Massey thought up a scheme to get back at Palma, tweeting:

‘I had a great idea to have a random friend of ours that Palma doesn’t know text him to buy action then send Nicky to a random house on a wild goose chase looking for a phantom buy in.’

That resulted in Palma almost but not quite missing out on the day’s play at the Seminole HardRock Poker Open in Hollywood, Florida…

…though Palma’s version of events was again somewhat different…

This is the second backing scandal of the week after Australian pro James Hopkins was accused of failing to pay back A$400,000 in loans and interest for a backing deal gone wrong.

Aidan Hildebrandt and other family members are suing Hopkins for reneging on his payments, the $1million-winning online pro stating that because he is a problem gambler with ADHD and depression he should not be held accountable for his actions.