One of the most perfectly judged performances at a European Poker Tour (EPT) Main Event final table today propelled Portugal’s Pedro Marques to the title in Prague, and a near €1 million payday.

The 31-year-old from Corroios is no stranger to the deep stages of PokerStars-sponsored tournaments, but today had to draw on a deep well of experience to prevail from a table featuring an overwhelming chip leader and a two-time EPT Main Event champion.

It had seemed for two-and-a-half days as if this title was heading into the hands of Paul Runcan, a UK-based Romanian player, who had not been out of the chip lead since 27 players remained. Failing that, headline writers were waiting to name Anton Bergstrom as the first ever three-time EPT champion, with the man behind the “WhatIfGod” moniker preparing to add a first live title to his two EPT Online successes.

But Marques had other ideas. Despite suffering what at one point seemed to be an unbeatable succession of coolers, any of which might have cost him his tournament life, Marques stood firm. He made the folds he needed to fold, and he then found his spots to build back into contention.

Runcan still had a near five-to-one chip lead when he and Marques were the last two of this 1,458-entry field remaining, but the Portuguese talent crept up and up to level the stacks. At that point, the pair agreed to chop the prize money, securing €900,000 apiece. And Marques continued his momentum in the short phase of play that followed the deal, snagging the €63K they had left on the side, plus the EPT title and trophy.

Icy cool at the table, he let his emotions out as he sealed the deal, with friends jumping into his arms and tears dropping from his eyes. This was a truly supreme performance from Marques. He deserves all the plaudits that should now be coming his way.

“This is huge for me, man,” Marques told Joe Stapleton in his post-game interview. “I’ve been playing these for 10 years and it’s an amazing feeling and I hope one day everyone in this room can have this feeling, because it’s great.”

He admitted that the buffeting he took during the final day took its toll, but experience told him to dig in and hope for a change in fortunes.

“At a certain point where we were four-handed or three-handed, I thought that my chances were really low,” Marques said. “But in poker you never know, anything can happen. It can all change.”

It was an excellent way to round off the year on the EPT, and Marques takes his rightful place among the pantheon of champions. This was a performance for the ages.

TOURNAMENT ACTION

Play began just after 12:30, with six players still involved. Runcan’s chip lead was as big as any player had had at this stage of a 1,000-plus entry field, but Pedro Marques was only a double-up away from taking over, while potential three-timer Anton Bergstrom was hovering in striking distance too.

They lined up as follows for the final day:

Seat 1: Siarhei Alontsau, Belarus, 3,150,000
Seat 2: Paul Runcan, Romania, 18,025,000
Seat 3: Anton Bergstrom, Sweden, 6,725,000
Seat 4: Pedro Marques, Portugal, 9,225,000
Seat 5: Barak Oz, Israel, 4,500,000
Seat 6: Jaehyung Park, South Korea, 2,100,000

Korea’s Jaehyung Park was the short stack for long period yesterday but showed remarkable durability to edge into the final day. And Park stayed out of danger in the opening exchanges today as well and was a delighted spectator as three opponents hit the rail ahead of him.

The first was the jubilant Belarusian Siarhei Alontsau, who had been persuaded to Prague after meeting a friend of a neighbour in his holiday house, a man known as Mikalai Pobal. Impressed by what he learned from the two-time EPT champion Pobal, Alontsau brought some family savings to Prague and bought into the Main Event. He rode the momentum all the way into the final day.

However, an early collision with pocket aces running into a flopped two-pair in the hands of Marques accounted for Alontsau today. He did nothing wrong. He opened the pot with the best hand in poker, he saw a call from Marques in the big blind, and then Alontsau jammed after the flop of 9♣ J♦ Q♣ . The only problem was that Marques had J♣ 9♠ and the aces were downed.

Alontsau nonetheless picked up €233,050 for sixth, which he would have taken for sure at the beginning of the week.

The next hand of real significance resulted in a double-up for Park. His K♠ 10♠ flopped best against Marques’ A♣ Q♦ and the Korean got to stick around. He was resultantly still seated when Anton Bergstrom’s hopes took a nosedive.

Bergstrom lost a chunk when he defended his big blind with pocket threes and turned an open-ended straight draw against the under-the-gun Marques. Marques barrelled flop and turn when his K♦ 7♦ flopped top pair, and Bergstrom lost when they checked the river. That left the Swedish powerhouse bottom of the leader board, and couldn’t win the next flip he played.

This one was against Runcan. Bergstom’s A♣ 10♦ didn’t hit against Runcan’s pocket fours. He departed with handshakes all round, coming closer than anybody else has to becoming a three-time EPT Main Event winner. He takes €303,000 away from this event, but remains in the pack of four two-time champs.

Runcan and Marques remained in a solid lead, while Park was now joined by Barak Oz below the average stack line. And Oz was the man who tried to change that first, but ended on the rail for his efforts.

In a rare pot folded pre-flop by Runcan, Marques took over as the man laying down the pressure. He shoved from the button with a covering stack and J♥ 8♥ . Oz looked at A♦ 7♣ in the small blind and reasoned he was ahead of the big-stack’s range. He called all-in and found out that his reasoning was correct. However an eight on the flop swung the pendulum to Marques and there was no coming back.

Oz is planning a wedding for the next couple of months and now has €393,950 more to lavish on it than he had a week ago. His EPT Prague story, though, ended in fourth.

While Runcan was continuing to build all but uncontested, Marques actually was having to work to stay involved. Although he had knocked out both Alontsau and Oz, he was also having a really tough time in pots against Park in particular.

Marques doubled Park with the latter’s A♠ 3♦ staying good against Marques’ 10♠ 9♦ . And then Park drew the stacks level when both players flopped the same trips, Marques holding K♦ 3♦ against Park’s K♣ J♣ on a K♠ 10♣ K♥ flop. After checking it to the Q♥ turn, Marques somehow found a fold when faced with a big check-raise.

Only a few hands later, Marques also managed to fold Q♠ Q♦ after the turn looking at 3♥ 10♥ K♠ J♦ when Park shoved. Park had J♣ 10♣ so was good, but Marques wriggled away. It meant, however, that Park moved into second place.

That proved to be a really crucial pot because it allowed Marques to survive and double up shortly after, finally winning a pot from Runcan. It was A♦ 3♥ beating K♥ Q♠ , and meant Marques now leapfrogged Park once more.

The three-handed battle thus developed into the most intriguing of the final day so far. Runcan was by far the most comfortable with an enormous stack still, but Marques, as the most experienced player, will have backed himself to be able to outplay both opponents. The Portuguese was, however, left boiling with frustration when yet another cooler went against him: his A♣ Q♣ flopped top pair, but Runcan’s J♦ 4♦ turned a flush and the 10 million pot that developed was slid to the Romanian.

Park was trying his best to make things happen. He limped from the small blind with pocket sevens, but then had to fold when Runcan jammed from the big. Park wasn’t to know Runcan had five-high. And if Park was merely waiting for a better spot, he duly found it soon after: A♥ K♣ against a shove from Marques, who Park now covered.

But on this occasion, Marques’ pocket fours held up, which left Park the short-stack again. And when all his chips went in one more time, they did not come back.

Park found A♦ 6♠ in the small blind and jammed his last 15 big blinds. Runcan woke up with A♣ K♣ and picked Park off. The king on the river sealed his fate. Park’s incredible short-stack heroics helped him edge all the way up to third place, which came with a first prize of €512,100. It was the highest place any Korean has finished in an EPT Main Event (although his countryman Gab Yong Kim took slightly more for fourth place in 2022 thanks to a four-way deal).

The final two therefore took their seats for a heads-up duel. Runcan’s stack of 36.225 million translated to 120 big blinds and a five-to-one lead over Marques’ 7.5 million. But 25 big blinds is far from unplayable, and Marques settled in to see what he could to overhaul this unstoppable leader.

The early exchanges went this way and that, with Runcan showing some exceptional discipline to fold two pair with a four-liner on the board. He was right. Marques had it. However, Runcan was soon unable to fold A♠ K♥ looking at a board of Q♦ 7♦ 3♠ 6♣ 8♠ and paid off Marques’ jam. Marques only had J♣ 7♣ so was presumably bluffing with the best hand. Whatever his intentions, Marques finished that pot with 40 big blinds.

When Marques then cracked Runcan’s aces with K♣ 9♥ rivering a straight, this next big pot heading into the Portuguese’s stack put them all but level. It was too much for either of them to cope with so much variance, and they decided to chop it up. They agreed to take €900K each and left $63K on the side to play for.

Marques now had all the momentum, but we’ve seen plenty of times that post-deal passages of play can still take forever. This was not to be one of those days, however.

Marques won a significant pot with 10♥ 9♣ beating Runcan’s 6♦ 3♦ , with the Romanian trying a bluff on a board of Q♣ K♥ 9♥ J♠ J♣ . Marques didn’t fall for it, called, and won a big one. It was the first time in two-and-a-half days that a name other than Runcan’s had appeared at the top of the leader board.

All the chips then went in on the very next hand, with Q♦ J♣ in Runcan’s hand downed by Marques’ K♦ Q♣ . It all went in pre-flop and a king sealed it.

Marques said before play got started that he hoped he could improve on his fourth-placed finish at EPT Barcelona in 2018 and his fifth place at the PSPC in 2023, two results that yielded him a combined $2 million. This time he duly did bag that elusive trophy, and his €963K is another million bucks in his balance. Tremendous.

EPT Prague 2024 Main Event
Dates: December 9-15, 2024
Entries: 1,458 (inc. 409 re-entries)
Prize pool: €7,071,300

1 – Pedro Marques, Portugal – €963,000*
2 – Paul Runcan, Romania – €900,000*
3 – Jaehyung Park, South Korea – €512,100
4 – Barak Oz, Israel – €393,950
5 – Anton Bergstrom, Sweden – €303,000
6 – Siarhei Alontsau, Belarus – €233,050

See results page for full payouts

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Carlos Gurdiel crowned first Spin & Go Live Champion

Eighty-one players spinned. And in the end, all but one had gone.

Spain’s Carlos Gurdiel has won the maiden Spin & Go Championship at EPT Prague in style, taking down the first-to-six-wins final with a dominating 6-2-2 performance that earned him the €25,000 first-place prize.

It’s as if this event was designed for the Madrid resident. One of Spain’s most respected Sit & Go turned Spin & Go players, Gurdiel is a former multiple Supernova Elite player whose skills in super-quick single-table tournaments had already won him a Platinum Pass in the past.

Now he has a live championship under his belt, despite claiming to hate live poker. “I’m not good at it all!” he told us earlier. “But each time I try to do a little better.” 

Well, you couldn’t do much better than he did today. In the decisive game, Brazil’s Murilo Monteiro busted first to leave Gurdiel heads-up against Lithuania’s Mantas Meskevicius, another pro Spin & Go player. 

The winning hand started with a button call from Gurdiel and a raise from Meskevicius, which was called. The flop came Q♣ J♣ K♦ and Gurdiel called a c-bet to bring the 10♣ turn. Meskevicius shoved and Gurdiel called.

Meskevicius was bluffing with the 7♣ 3♠ , drawing dead against the bottom end of the straight, 7♥ 9♦ . The Q♦ river changed nothing and Gurdiel became our champion.

But as both Meskevicius and Monteiro were tied on two wins, the two played another game to determine who would finish in second place.

The exciting stretch of that decider started when Meskevicius doubled to take a big chip lead with K♣ 4♣ holding against J♣ 9♣ . It’s never easy, though, and Monteiro charged back with two double-ups, first with pocket jacks against 9♥ 6♣ , and then hitting a lucky river card on the A♥ Q♦ 9♦ 7♥ Q♥ runout with Q♣ 6♥ against A♦ 10♣ .

Now super short-stacked, Meskevicius was all in with Q♠ 9♦ vs K♦ J♥ and a king on the flop sealed it. Monteiro, a Brazilian Spin pro, finished second for €15k (plus €3K envelope prize he won yesterday), and Meskevicius finished third for €10k.

This was a fantastic debut and we look forward to the next edition.

Spin & Go Championship (invite only)
Dates: December 14-15, 2024
Entries: 81
Prize pool: €100,000 (split between payouts and mystery envelopes)

1.Carlos Gurdiel (Spain) – €25,000
2. Murilo Monteiro (Brazil) – €15,000
3. Mantas Meskevicius (Lithuania) – €10,000

MEET THE SPIN & GO CHAMPIONSHIP FINALISTS

Nine players returned today for Round 3 of the inaugural Spin & Go Championship at EPT Prague, after a hard-fought second round on Saturday night that began with 27 hopefuls.

Now, after a hectic few hours of high-octane, hyper-turbo action, just three players remain.

The final is about to begin so here’s a recap of what’s happened so far today, including profiles of the three finalists.

ROUND 3 ACTION

TABLE 1 

Seat 1 – Francisco Andujar (Spain)
Seat 2 – Danilo Carvalho (Brazil)
Seat 3 – Mantas Meskevicius (Lithuania)

TABLE 2

Seat 1 – Sergio Carro (Spain)
Seat 2 – Maksymilian Chodacki (Poland)
Seat 3 – Carlos Gurdiel (Spain)

TABLE 3

Seat 1 – Alejandro Peinado (Romania)
Seat 2 – Pietro Piscane (Italy)
Seat 3 – Murilo Monteiro (Brazil)

Before play commenced, a random envelope was drawn for each table with the prize inside going to whoever won the first game in the first-to-five match. Table 3 was the lucky one, drawing the €10K prize, while Table 2 got €5K and Table 1 got €2K.

Brazil’s Danilo Carvalho, who we spoke to yesterday after he won his Round 1 match, was the first across the tables to capture all the chips and banked €2K for his efforts. Poland’s Maksymilian Chodacki then took down the first game on Table 2 and celebrated his €5K win by posing for photos for friends on the rail.

Table 3 was the longest contest with the most at stake. Spain’s Alejandro Peinado was the first player eliminated, setting up a heads-up match between Pietro Piscane of Italy and Murilo Monteiro – a friend of Carvalho’s and fellow Spin & Go pro from Brazil.

Monteiro got the best of the early exchanges, doubling up with K♣ 10♥ against J♥ 8♠ . He fistpumped the air before raking in most of the chips, but Piscane was still alive and doubled up shortly after when his J♥ 10♦ turned a straight on a 9♦ Q♦ 2♠ 8♣ A♠ board to topple Monteiro’s A♥ K♣ .

That’s as far as Piscane’s comeback would go. In the final hand, he was all-in and ahead with Q♣ 4♠ against 7♠ 8♦ , but his hopes were crushed as the board ran out 10♦ 10♥ 8♥ 8♣ 4♣ to hand victory and the €10K envelope to Monteiro.

Monteiro would go on to win the entire thing too, locking up another €10K by making the final. Spanish crusher Carlos Gurdiel made quick work of his table to become the first finalist, and Mantas Meskevicius was the first to five wins over on Table 1.

All three finalists are now guaranteed €10K, increasing to €15K for the runner-up and €25K for the winner.

Learn more about the finalists here.

CARLOS GURDIEL 

Ask anyone in the Spanish poker community and they’ll confirm it; Carlos Gurdiel is one of the country’s highest-rated Sit & Go turned Spin & Go players. “It’s just my normal job and I’ve been doing this for a long time,” he says.

A Supernova Elite many times over, Gurdiel’s prowess and prolific volume in short-handed hypers first won him a Platinum Pass to the PokerStars Players Championship in 2023 and then saw him top the second leaderboard to secure his package to the maiden Spin & Go Championship here in Prague. 

Gurdiel has enjoyed playing Spins in person for the first time, even though he hates to play live poker. “I’m not good at it at all!” he says. “But each time I try to do a little better. You have to make some adaptions and not give out tells. You have to be really focused.”

He’s loved the experience and looks forward to the final match. “One more table to go. I’ll be ready.”

MURILO MONTEIRO

Murilo Monteiro has played low-stakes Spin & Gos for a living for the past five years, switching from tournaments as he didn’t like the variance. The 28-year-old focuses on $5 buy-ins, but that hasn’t stopped him from beating some of the top Spin players in the world en route to the final.

“My first two tables were crazy difficult,” he says. “I had opponents who play $100 up to $1K Spins. But it was a lot of fun.”

Monteiro, from Brazil, topped a low-stakes leaderboard to secure his seat in this exclusive event. He’s not got much live poker experience but found it thrilling to play three-handed in person. Plus, he “got lucky” to win a 3K prize in Round 2.

“It’s crazy. It’s very new for us,” he says. “It’s only the best players in the world so it’s very difficult. It would be great to win because it’s a live tournament, it would be nice to get a Hendon Mob flag. A dream.”

Once here he met his friend and fellow Spin & Go Championship participant Danilho Carvalho for the first time. “We’ve known each other for five years and speak in the same text group, but we never got to meet,” he says.

He adds: “Prague is beautiful and this experience is what every poker player wants. Something more personal, getting off the computer, meeting people who before you only new by nicknames.”

MANTAS MESKEVICIUS

Mantas Meskevicius is a Spin & Go professional from Lithuania has focused solely on the three-handed format for the past three years.

Meskevicius only started playing poker seriously in 2020 during the COVID-19 lockdowns and threw himself into studying, reaching the $25 Spin & Go limit. His biggest Spin win? $18,000.

“It’s a very good experience,” he says. “Many of us only play online and now we have cameras in front of us. It’s great, I’m glad to be here.

He says he sometimes plays MTTs but only feels comfortable when he’s playing this format. “That’s not my home. Spins are my home.”

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FINAL TABLE PLAYER PROFILES

The EPT Prague final table is set. Find out some more about the last six in our final table player profiles.

SEAT 1 – SIARHEI ALONTSAU, 32, BELARUS (LIVES IN BUDAPEST, HUNGARY) – 3,150,000 CHIPS

Siarhei Alontsau says there are three people responsible for his incredible Main Event run here in Prague. 

The first is his poker mentor who taught him the game when he was a teenager in Belarus. Alontsau was too young to play himself, but he’d sit patiently behind his friend, watching and learning. Now his mentor is watching him on the live stream and the two speak on every tournament break.

The second person is two-time EPT winner and Belarusian poker star Mikalai Pobal. Alontsau and his wife went to stay with friends at their summer cottage in Belarus, where Pobal happens to be a neighbour. “My friend told me, look, Siarhei, this guy won several times,” Alontsau explains. “So I decided, OK, I’m going to participate in an EPT as well.”

The third person is his wife, who not only gave Alontsau the green light to use some of his savings to come and play, but who has been alongside him cheering him on every step of the six-day journey. 

You won’t find any results online for Alontsau, but he says he’s got plenty of experience. When he was 18 he entered a beginners tournament in the Belarusian Federation of Poker and won it. He then had a decision – go pro or get a career, and he chose the latter. “Playing poker professionally is not easy,” he says. “You can have a birthday and a funeral in the same day.”

For 12 years he’s worked in information security, helping to prevent online hacker attacks. He’s not had much MTT experience since that decision, but he says he’s played lots of Sit & Gos, adding: “I’m well informed about ICM and push-fold equity.”

That puts him in good stead at the final table, where he’s guaranteed by far the biggest poker win of his life. But he says poker has never been about the money. He just loves the process.

“The thing I’m most proud of is that across all six days, I’ve never been all-in when I was behind,” he says. “Winning the title would mean much more to me than the prizes.”

SEAT 2 – PAUL RUNCAN, 33, ROMANIA (LIVES IN NOTTINGHAM, UK) – 18,025,000 CHIPS

What a ride for Romanian player Paul Runcan in this EPT Main Event. The 33-year-old took the lead once the field was down to three tables and stayed at the top of the chip counts ever since. He started the day at the top of the leader board with 16 players left and will now start six-handed play with a huge stack of 18 million chips.

This has been Runcan’s breakout year on the live scene. All of his top five scores – all five-figure – came in 2024. Now he’s guaranteed to achieve another milestone with a six-figure minimum payout.

The Romanian made his debut playing poker for low stakes in England almost ten years ago, mainly in Nottingham where he lives. He secured his first significant results in side events at EPT Paris this year and his first five-figure wins in Monte-Carlo, with two 10th place finishes in FPS High Roller and EPT Mystery Bounty events.

Now a regular on the European circuit, Runcan is travelling around France, Italy and others European stops. With only $270,000 live poker earnings so far, Runcan will at least double his total in career. But with his stack, he is a serious contender for the title.

​​SEAT 3 – ANTON BERGSTROM, 39, LUND, SWEDEN — 6,725,000 CHIPS

New ground could be broken on the European Poker Tour on Sunday when Sweden’s Anton Bergstrom sits down at the final table in Prague. Despite his best documented EPT performance so far being a sixth-place finish in Barcelona on Season 2, Bergstrom has this week revealed a secret. The Swedish player, who is 39 years old, admitted that he is the previously-anonymous PokerStars player “WhatIfGod”. 

This is important news because back during the Covid years, PokerStars hosted two EPT Online tournaments, which are generally accepted as part of the official EPT canon. “WhatIfGod” won both EPT Online Main Events, making him one of only four people who have two EPT titles. Here in Prague, he has the best chance yet of becoming the first three-time EPT winner.

Bergstrom is a professional player of many years standing. He was only 20 when he broke on to the scene with that final table appearance in Barcelona and before this week, it remained his biggest ever live score. But WhatIfGod is an online tournament crusher. The first EPT Online victory came with a prize of more than $1 million. The second came with a $364K prize. He has three WCOOP titles, including two from the 2014 series, and five SCOOP wins. Rarely a major series goes by without him visiting the winner’s circle at least once.

Bergstrom, from Lund, near Malmo in Sweden, has already more than doubled his entire documented live tournament earnings thanks to his run to the last day here. And if he adds the title to his EPT Online double, he’ll enter entirely uncharted territory.

SEAT 4 – PEDRO MARQUES, 31, CORROIOS, PORTUGAL – 9,225,000 CHIPS

Pedro Marques has become a very well known face on the EPT, having been on the circuit for 10 years. He made the final table of EPT Barcelona in 2018, where he came fourth for €698,369. But that was left in the shade when he made the final of the PSPC in the Bahamas in January 2023, where fifth place was worth more than $1.25 million.

The Portuguese pro is now at another major final table in a PokerStars event, having silently amassed a stack of close to 10 million, second only to the runaway leader. “I’m really happy and I will try my best to do even better this time,” Marques says.

Marques is a former psychology student and used to make his money as an online Omaha cash game player, but has dedicated almost all of his time to online and live MTTs the last decade. He is undoubtedly the most experienced live player at the final table, whose $4.7 million career earnings puts the 31 year old in a solid second in the Portugal all-time money list, behind only the high roller reg Joao Vieira.

SEAT 5 – BARAK OZ, 36, TEL AVIV, ISRAEL – 4,500,000

Originally from Ramat Gan, Barak Oz lives near the beach in Tel Aviv, Israel, a sweet spot for an avid wakesurfer. Oz calls himself a semi-professional poker player, who used to play more frequently during his student years, but now combines the game with his job as a data analyst.

The 36-year-old said he typically makes three or four poker trips every year. The Czech Republic has treated him especially well in 2024. He picked up his career-biggest prize of €73,850 11 months ago in Rozvadov and now he’s already guaranteed a six-figure score here at EPT Prague.

“I love Prague,” Oz said, praising the city, the EPT Main Event structure, and the tournament organisation. 

Oz admits he feels a little nervous when thinking of the final table payouts, but he puts it to the back of his mind immediately when he takes his seat at the table. He is then entirely in the zone. He’s also well aware that only Uri Gilboa has won an EPT title for Israel but is doing his best not to think that far ahead.

Any prize from the final table will come in handy for a man planning for his wedding. He doesn’t have a date confirmed just yet, but said it will take place some time in the next few months in Israel. Oz confirmed he’s ready to spend some winnings to make it spectacular. 

SEAT 6 – JAEHYUNG PARK, 40, SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA – 2,100,000 CHIPS

Jaehyung Park calls himself a semi pro. “We don’t have professional poker in Korea,” he explains after mentioning that he really only focuses on the game and has no other source of income.

Park is guaranteed to pass $700,000 in career live cashes when he hands in his final table payout slip. Until this month, he’d played exclusively in Asia, mostly in his hometown Seoul but also in Manilla and Hanoi.

He picked Prague for his EPT debut, stating: “I feel very lucky, it was a very good decision.”

He says his appetite for the EPT is quickly growing and he ia already contemplating visiting more European stops next year.

Before then, the 40-year-old will have a chance to secure the all-time best EPT result for South Korea. He’s just become the second Korean finalist in the tour’s 20-year history and hopes to top Gab Yong Kim’s 4th place from March 2022 – also at Hilton Prague.

Outside poker, Park said he enjoys building Lego and watching animated movies and cartoons.

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‘WE LOVE THE GOSSIP’ — EPT’S CÉDRIC BILLOT ON THE TOUR’S FUTURE

After the reluctant cancellation of EPT Paris, poker’s rumour mill started grinding out the gossip as to where the EPT might head to next, and whether other established stops might vanish from the schedule.

PokerStars’ Associate Director of Live Events, Cédric Billot, told PokerStars Blog today that while he loves the gossip surrounding the tour (“It shows the interest!”) the gossip-mongers are dealing in “pure speculation”. Billot insisted that players and fans should infer nothing from the absence of certain destinations from a recent 2025 announcement, while also hold off from jumping the gun about where else we might head.

Read the interview with Billot, which provides a really fascinating insight into how the PokerStars Live Events team plans its schedule.

‘We love the gossip’ — EPT’s Cédric Billot on Paris, Prague…and where the tour goes next

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SNG CHAMPIONSHIP: PULL UP A CHAIR FOR DECISIVE GAME 10

Live reporting from the Spin & Go Championship would be like playing a game of whack-a-mole. You knock one hand on the head and there’s another ready to pop up immediately. 

So instead of exhausting you with hundreds of hand histories, let’s focus on one particular three-handed table from the second starting flight (Day 1B). 27 players began the flight, but only nine advance to round two.

We chose this one as there was an interesting dynamic. Two of the players – Luca Magrella from Italy and Viktor Dozsa from Slovakia – had already won three games, needing only one more win to advance (it’s a first-to-four-wins format). The third player, Danilo Carvalho of Brazil, had two wins and hoped to catch up.

Here’s what happened.

Almost as soon as we arrived, Dozsa was sent to the rail. We can only imagine the helplessness he must have felt as he watched with his girlfriend, praying for Carvalho to win so he could return for a final bout.

Magrella delivered the blow and now had the chip lead. The Italian, who only started playing Spins seriously in June this year yet still finished in the top spots of his country’s leaderboard, was on the verge of victory. He took a deep breath, composed himself, and play resumed.

Seconds later, Dozsa and his girlfriend suddenly bolted towards the table. There was an all-in and a call. 

It turned out the river card had given Magrella top two pair, but it had also given Carvalho a straight. It didn’t take long for Carvalho to collect the rest of Magrella’s chips too.

They were heading for a Game 10 decider. Dozsa was back, baby.

All three players now had three wins so whoever won the final game would advance. 

Unfortunately for Magrella, he was the first to fall when he called all-in with A♠ A♦ on a 8♥ 10♥ 10♠ 7♠ board and was up against Dozsa’s 10♣ 9♠ . The J♠ river changed nothing.

Two hands into heads-up, Carvalho took a chunk of Dosza’s chips in a pre-flop all-in with A♦ 7♣ against Dozsa’s 5♥ 5♣ , spiking an ace on the river. 

But Dozsa doubled in the very next hand, his 6♥ 3♥ beating Carvalho’s A♦ K♣ in another pre-flop all-in. 

If you think these hands are questionable, it’s worth remembering that the blinds were huge at this stage. There’s simply no time to wait around for a big hand; you have to take every spot.

Dosza had a big lead and looked set for a fairytale comeback. But then Carvalho found a double with A♠ 7♦ against 9♠ 10♦ .

Both players picked up the blinds before a decisive hand occurred. 

Dosza was all-in and at risk with 8♥ 6♦ against Carvalho’s 5♠ 10♥ . Ten-high was still best after the 4♥ Q♠ 9♦ 9♠ A♠ runout, and we had our winner.

Turns out Carvalho is a professional Spin & Go player who has played nothing but the three-handed hypers for six years (we should have guessed from the patches on his shirt). He won the first leaderboard to secure a package to this Championship.

“It’s a very cool experience and a new one for me,” he says. “I like to play live tournaments but to get to play Spin & Go’s live as a Spin professional was great.”

Carvalho only started playing live tournaments this year on the Brazil Series of Poker (BSOP) and already has a trophy, winning a Win The Button event for $4,733. But this is his first time at a European Poker Tour event. “I hope I can get a trophy here too!”

Not sure how the Spin & Go Championship works? Check out the article below.

ACTION, ACTION, ACTION IN THE SPIN & GO CHAMPIONSHIP

The first-ever Spin & Go Live Championship is running in the main hall of EPT Prague today, adding extra vim and vigour to an festival that’s already buzzing with excitement. 

The event sees 81 players – comprised of 74 PokerStars Spin & Go qualifiers and seven special guests – battle on three-handed tables for a share of €100,000 in prizes. That prize pool is split between regular payouts and random prizes distributed via mystery envelopes throughout the event.

Players won their way into the exclusive event via freerolls and leaderboard competitions. Winners not only received their tournament entry but also a room in the Hilton for two nights plus €500 in expenses.

The Day 1A round is in the books, but before we get to that, here’s an explainer.

HOW THE LIVE EVENT WORKS

A total of €100,000 in prize money is on offer at the Spin & Go Championship, split between fixed final table prizes, random prizes distributed via mystery envelopes throughout the event, and prizes based on a ranking system.

There’s a first-place prize of €25,000 up for grabs, with €15,000 going to the overall runner-up and €10,000 awarded to third place.

Beginning with 81 players, the entire tournament follows the popular knockout Spin & Go format that sees players compete three-handed for mystery prizes until only one is left standing.

With mystery prizes coming into play in Round 2, here are the details of each four-game round:

Round 1: 81 players across 27 tables. Four wins are required to reach Round 2

Round 2: 27 players across nine tables. Five wins are required to reach Round 3; €30,000 in random mystery envelope prizes between €2,000 and €10,000

Round 3: Nine players across three tables. Five wins are required to reach the Final Round; €7,300 in prizes according to ranking and €17,000 in random mystery envelope prizes

Final Round: Three players across one table. €25,000 for first; €15,000 for second; €10,000 for third.

ROUND 1 ACTION

The cool thing about this event is that it’s a first-to-four-wins format. That means one bad beat or one bad play won’t leave you with a bad taste in your mouth for the rest of the day. Lose all your chips? Sit tight. You’ll be back in action soon.

For this to work, each table has it’s own built-in tournament clock that gets reset each time someone wins a game.

Bulgaria’s Daniel Chutrov was the first to fall in one of his table’s matches, but he still had a smile on his face. That’s because Chutrov feels fortunate just to be here. 

He said he was “really unlucky” to finish sixth in one of the qualifying online freerolls, just missing out on one of the five Spin & Go championship seats guaranteed. But as luck would have it, one of those five winners couldn’t make it. 

“PokerStars contacted me and told me the good news, I was in,” he told us. 

We also heard the story of online qualifier Gonzalo Colina, an Argentine who took planes, trains and automobiles to here. His journey began in Buenos Aires where he took the three-hour flight to Sao Paolo, Brazil. From there he boarded the 11.5-hour flight to Frankfurt, Germany. After a quick stretch of the legs, he took the seven-hour train to Prague.

Colina had never played a single hand of live poker before this event. Unfortunately, he didn’t make it through, but hopefully, this unique experience made the journey worthwhile.

One player who did make it through was Spain’s Juan Guardiola. He was the first to four wins and won his way into this event in an online freeroll. Having made such quick work of his table, there were no surprises when he revealed that he’s a Spin & Go pro.

“I play them every single day,” he told us after winning his table. “This event is so cool. We tried a very small version of this in Barcelona to provide feedback and it went well. Now we have people here from all around the world. Every second there’s action, action, action.”

There was still tons of action around us when Guardiola found out he was the first player through. “Oh, I am?” he said, surprised. “I’ll be the first one through and the last one standing!”

The final table to finish featured PokerStars Ambassador Felix Schneiders, one of the seven special guests invited to play in this tournament. Schneiders’ table reached a tense Game 10, as Schneiders, Spain’s Jose Lerida and Kazakhstan’s Ilya Leykin each won three games. Down to the wire, it was Leykin who took down the decider. 

ROUND 1A SURVIVORS: 

Juan Guardiola (Spain)
Francisco Andujar (Spain)
Davide Bianchini (Italy)
Alexei Covaliov (Moldova)
Guiseppe Guido (Italy)Carlos Gurdiel (Spain)
Jose Lerida (Spain)
Ilya Leykin (Kazakhstan)
Murilo Monteiro (Brazil)
Vasile-Cristian Sidorencu (Romania)

SYLWIA STUDNIARZ FOLLOWS HER HEART

When Sylwia Studniarz was a poker reporter for Poland’s top poker media sites, she’d regularly interview players on the verge of big scores, or just after they’d taken down a title. 

But here at EPT Prague, the roles have been reversed. It’s Studniarz who is currently deep in the Main Event, playing one of the room’s biggest stacks on Day 4 with a new best score guaranteed. It’s Studniarz who recently took down a title at EPT Barcelona. And now it’s Studniarz who is being interviewed by poker media.

Is she enjoying it? “Yeah,” she says, smiling, on a Main Event break. “It’s really fun. And actually? I don’t feel stressed. Having a big stack gives you confidence.”

Her balance and composure are admirable considering she’s spent the past 90 minutes up on the feature table under the bright lights and big cameras of the EPT Live Stream. Normally she’d listen to music when she plays (“Disney songs!”) but players are unable to wear headphones when on the main stage.

Hakuna matata (it means no worries). Studniarz has played some exceptional poker throughout this event, still brimming with confidence from her last poker trip at EPT Barcelona. There, she won a satellite into a €10K High Roller, but it didn’t go her way. “I really saw a different level in play there,” she says. “My table had multiple poker coaches and I didn’t get any good cards.”

After busting, she immediately entered the Women’s Event and took it down for €10,670.

Today, in Prague, Studniarz has managed to bounce back from an enormous early setback, losing almost half of her 1.5 million stack in the very first hand when Portugal’s Pedro Marquez rivered a flush against her flopped two pair and got paid (Marquez is currently sat directly on Studniarz’s left).

“But now it’s OK, I have more than I had at the beginning,” she says. “It’s a very nice experience and of course, a lot of money could be won. But I’m trying not to focus on that. I’m trying to have fun and maybe I’ll win more.”

Studniarz left poker reporting behind a few years ago to enter the nightclub business and she’s now the proud owner of three clubs across multiple cities in Poland.

“I’m totally focused on those,” she says. “But sometimes I like to play poker because poker has my heart.”

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ADRIAN MACK’S BIG EPT SHOT AMID LIFE-CHANGING NEWS

Every evening for the past week, Adrian Mack and his wife have wrapped up warm and braved the Prague cold, taking a five-kilometre moonlit walk through the city’s stunning streets. It’s the couple’s first time in Czechia, having recently moved from Nevada, USA to Ansbach, Germany for Mack’s work, and they’re relishing in all things European.

“It’s just beautiful here,” says Mack. “America is too, but I think I’m just used to it. I’m seeing so much here that’s just gorgeous, and the food is amazing.”

The most beautiful sight Mack sees every night? A chip bag. The 29-year-old entered Day 4 of the EPT Prague Main Event with one of the largest stacks and at the time of writing, he sits around the middle of the chip counts with just 34 players remaining – the last remaining American player in the field.

The busy poker grind means his evening walks have been his only chance to sightsee. Not that he’s complaining. He’s been watching the EPT broadcasts since he was a teenager and saved up all of his poker winnings to be here. “I just wanted to experience the European Poker Tour,” he says. “So I was like, let’s take a shot.”

It’s working out so far, and his timing couldn’t be better. 

The couple just shared some fantastic news with their families: they’re two months pregnant with their first child. Now those family members, back home in Ohio where Mack was born and raised, are cheering him on in his first tournament on European soil.

This might be his first poker experience in Europe but Mack has played a bunch back home, everything from World Series of Poker (WSOP) and Circuit events to World Poker Tour tournaments, with some modest success – $37K in live earnings. 

“I’ll say this is probably the best poker experience I’ve ever had,” says Mack, and not just because he’s getting close to the €1,146,500 first-place prize. “The people are amazing. Not even just the dealers, the general person here is so nice and welcoming.”

It would be hard not to warm to a guy like Mack. He has a big smile. He’s super polite. He’s dressed head to toe in Ohio State Buckeyes football gear. He’s the kind of opponent you’d still root for even if he took the last of your chips. 

Mack’s plan for Prague was to play three tournaments: the €550 Eureka Cup (which he cashed), the Eureka Main (which he didn’t), and the EPT Prague Main Event, where he’s still in contention. This is the best shot at a big score he’s ever had.

“When you get to this stage of the tournament you’re just trying to avoid the mines, the aces versus kings setups etc.,” he says. “The early days are just about surviving and trying to chip up. That’s been my strategy throughout, try and stay above average stack and don’t freak out!”

When asked what would be a great result for him, Mack gives it some thought before settling on the figure €100,000. That would give him enough money to set up a fund for the baby, fix his wife’s broken car, and maybe even treat them both to a new ride.

Plus, he’d replenish the poker savings he spent to be here, and then some.

“I just took a shot and it’s really working out,” he says. “Right now, this current payout (€22,850) more than pays for my entire Prague trip. I’m freerolling today!”

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EXPLAINER: WHAT’S A SHOT CLOCK IN POKER?

Shot clocks are now very much part of the furniture at major poker tournaments, and the EPT Main Event brings them to the tables from Day 3 onwards.

But PokerStars, a company committed to introducing as many new players to the game as possible at its live events, never assumes its players are familiar with every tiny detail of tournament mechanics.

At the start of every day, the dealer at every table ensures players know what the shot-clock restrictions mean.

It’s rather like the safety briefing before takeoff on an aircraft. Most people, the seasoned travellers, ignore it, but it might be crucial, new information for some.

With that in mind, here’s a quick shot-clock refresher for anyone thinking about playing a PokerStars live event for the first time. This should tell you all you need to know.

WHAT IS A SHOT CLOCK IN POKER?

A shot clock is the device that measures the time a poker player has to make their decision during every hand. It typically sits beside the dealer, who controls it. It typically has a digital display that counts down a player’s decision-making time.

Players are required to either make their decision (check, bet or fold) before the clock reaches zero, or to use a time extension/time bank card to request further thinking time. (See more about time extensions below.)

Dealers will reset the shot clock after every decision, and will typically give a five-second warning as the countdown reaches the end.

WHY ARE SHOT CLOCKS NECESSARY IN POKER?

In short: play was sometimes getting a bit too slow. In past years, players were allowed an unlimited amount of thinking time on every street. (This is still the case in most cash games.) However, at certain points in a tournament, most notably around pay-jumps or the bubble, players would deliberately take far longer over trivial decisions than was necessary. They would try to “stall”, essentially pretending to be thinking about a decision for as long as possible, in the hope that an opponent at a different table would be knocked out.

This stalling might help the player in question navigate a pay jump, but it would slow the game down unnecessarily and sometimes unfairly. If everybody in the field did it, players would see very few hands and the game would become unbearable.

The shot clock limits the time any player can spend on any decision. It ensures the play progresses at an agreeable rate.

Further reading: How PokerStars Blog first reported the subject of shot-clocks 12 years ago.

HOW LONG DO I GET?

Accepted decision-making time varies from tournament to tournament, and from operator to operator. Right now in an EPT Main Event, each player has 15 seconds to act on their first decision and 30 seconds on any subsequent decision.

That means that after you’ve looked at your hand pre-flop, you have 15 seconds to decide what to do with it. That’s your first decision. If you raise and an opponent three-bets, you then get 30 seconds to respond to it. That’s your second (i.e., a “subsequent” decision). Similarly, if you go to a flop, you now get 30 seconds for all decisions.

This reflects the way in which decision-making can become gradually more complex as a hand develops. It is usually far more straightforward to make a decision pre-flop than it is at other times in the hand.

WHAT ABOUT IF I GENUINELY NEED LONGER TO MAKE A TOUGH DECISION?

If you find yourself with a genuinely tough decision that might take longer than 30 seconds to implement, you can use a time-bank card to earn another 30 seconds. You can play as many time-bank cards as you wish, provided you still have enough, until you come to your decision.

WHAT ARE TIME-BANK OR TIME EXTENSION CARDS?

At the point at which the shot clock comes into the tournament, players receive a specific allocation of these time-bank cards, each of which represents 30 seconds more thinking time. A player retains any unspent time-bank cards into a new day, and typically gets a fresh allocation at the start of a day’s play as well.

The number of time-bank cards will vary from tournament to tournament, but currently the EPT Main Event gives players six time-bank cards per day from Day 3 onwards.

Note: you do not need to physically put the time-bank card over the line or hand it to the dealer while you are still making your decision. The dealer will keep note of how many 30-second extensions you have used and ask you to settle up at the end of the hand.

WHAT IF I GO OVER THE 30 SECONDS?

As stated above, a dealer will automatically assume you wish to use a time extension if you allow your countdown to reach zero. They will restart the shot clock and you will have another 30 seconds.

If, however, you no longer have any time-bank cards and your countdown reaches zero, your hand will be declared dead and the pot will go to your opponent.

WHAT IF I DON’T NEED 30 SECONDS ON EACH DECISION?

If you can come to a decision quickly, then you should implement it as soon as possible. Although it’s acceptable to wish to conceal timing tells, or to balance your decision-making time, there’s no reason to use all of your 15 or 30-second thinking time on every street. This is particularly true if you’re just going to fold your cards and know that straight away.

The shot clock should not encourage you to take longer than you normally would. And tournament officials reserve the right to restrict a player’s thinking time, even in a shot clock tournament, if they believe a player is unnecessarily delaying the game’s progression.

This is plainly stated in EPT tournament rules, which read (under the PACE OF PLAY sub-heading):

• Players are required to make decisions within a reasonable timeframe.
• Players who are found to intentionally abuse time, deliberately stall, or purposely slow down the game’s progression will be subjected to a 5-second shot clock for all subsequent decision-making.
• In all tournaments, including shot clock tournaments, we retain the right to limit the time any player has to make a decision.

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ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS…IS A 10% STARS STORE DISCOUNT

There are only 12 days left until Christmas, and chances are that if you’re reading this you’re the kind of person who might enjoy some PokerStars-related swag under the Christmas tree.

If so, it’s a good idea to send some suggestive nudges in the direction of anyone struggling to think of a gift idea and tell them there’s 10 percent off, plus free shipping, at the PokerStars Store until the end of EPT Prague.

The promo code is EPTCZ24 and the offer applies across the PokerStars range. There are tons of really appealing items on sale, for all budgets.

The Poker Starter Set is a sure favourite this time of year. Whether you’re just learning the rules, or want to transition from online play into live play, this kit contains everything you need.

Meanwhile, there are accessories including sunglasses, a brand-new foldable umbrella, and even a foam brick onto which to direct your frustrations. (Avoid tilt, stay hydrated.)

It’s in the poker apparel department that PokerStars really excels, however, and based on a glance around the EPT Prague tournament room, the PokerStars Graffiti Hoodie is a real winer this year. Meanwhile, there’s a wonderful simple elegance about the PokerStars Players Club Red Unzipped Hoodie.

And then there are socks. It’s Christmas, so there are always socks.

If you happen to be at EPT Prague, there’s still time to take a look at the full range, and enjoy the same discount, at the PokerStars Store in the Hilton Lobby.

Remember: use the promo code EPTCZ24 for a 10 percent discount and free shipping!

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HUGE SUNDAY MILLION SATELLITES RUNNING NOW

Just a reminder that some juicy Sunday Million satellites are running in the lead-up to this week’s $109 buy-in, $1M guaranteed event.

The biggest of the four Mega Satellites takes place on Sunday at 11:05 ET, with 300 seats guaranteed for just $11. But you could also grab a ticket today, Friday or Saturday too.

Here are the details:

• Thursday, December 12: $11 Mega Satellite, 13:05 ET, 100 seats Gtd
• Friday, December 13: $11 Mega Satellite, 13:05 ET, 100 seats Gtd
• Saturday, December 14: $11 Mega Satellite, 13:05 ET, 150 seats Gtd
• Sunday, December 15: $11 Mega Satellite, 11:05 ET, 300 seats Gtd

Good luck!

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MAIDEN MIXED GAMES MAIN EVENT BEGINS TODAY

PokerStars is always adding new twists to its European Poker Tour (EPT) schedules, but now they’ve added a new main event that twists and turns at every orbit. 

The maiden Mixed Games Main Event kicks off at 20:00 at EPT Prague today (Dec 12), the first non-hold’em event in tour history to present a shiny shard trophy to the eventual champion, similar to those hoisted in no limit hold’em mains and high rollers. 

There’s no denying the increasing popularity of mixed games and the demand for more tournaments in non-hold’em/PLO disciplines. The introduction of this €2,200 10-game Mixed Games Main Event highlights PokerStars’ commitment to not only delivering the best poker options live and online, but also spreading the good word of lesser-known games.

Mixed game events have long been present on EPT schedules. On the EPT Prague schedule, you’ll have found an €1,100 Big Bet Mix, €1,100 and €5,200 8-Game events, and a €550 HORSE tournament.

But this Mixed Games Main Event is expected to bring out all of the big guns.  

Here’s what they’ll be playing.

10 GAME ORDER:

• Fixed Limit 2-7 Triple Draw
• Pot Limit Omaha
• Fixed Limit Stud High-Low 8 or better
• Fixed Limit Badugi
• Fixed Limit Hold’em
• No Limit 2-7 Single Draw
• Fixed Limit Stud
• Fixed Limit Omaha High-Low 8 or better
• No Limit Hold’em
• Fixed Limit Razz

Ahead of the big event, PokerStars spoke with Ambassadors and Mixed Games enthusiasts Parker Talbot, GJ Reggie, and Sebastian Huber – all of whom have won mixed-game events live and online – for their top tips on tackling this tournament. 

“Mixed Games are the ultimate test of skill, strategy, and adaptability,” said Talbot, who has five World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) titles including wins in HORSE and 8-Game. He suggests watching WCOOP and SCOOP final table replays as the best way to study, unless you can afford tools or private coaching.

His favourite game is razz, so tread lightly against him in that game if you’re drawn to his table in the Main Event. But he has a soft spot for 2-7 single draw, saying: “It’s one of my favourites because there’s a lot of bluffing.”

Like Talbot, Georgina “GJ Reggie” James also plays mixed games as part of her regular online grind. It’s live where she enjoyed her biggest win though, taking down a 9-Game event at the Brazil Series of Poker.  

James says it’s important to pay attention to everything when playing mixed games tournaments, whether it be the blinds, limits, the game type, and position. “The situations you play can vary wildly between the different games so staying focussed at all times is key,” she said.

She predicts that NL 2-7 single draw and NL 5-card draw will be the two games in which most people will struggle, mainly due to a lack of experience. “Something to remember is that these formats tend to have a larger ante pre and that there are only two betting rounds, compared to NLHE with four,” said James. “Pre-draw and post-draw, be aware so you can adjust your bet sizes accordingly, whether you’re going for value or a big bluff.”

As for Sebastian Huber, his recent WCOOP victory in an $11 HORSE event has lit a mixed-game fire in him. “The more you practice, the better you will get,” he said. “The good thing is there are so many good mixed game tournaments on PokerStars where you can practice as much as you want.”

Huber, who is primarily a no limit hold’em specialist, suggests you do not go into an event like the Mixed Games Main Event without at least some strategy for each game. “It’s better to have a little knowledge on each than be an expert in one,” he said.

But even if you’re inexperienced in some of the games, the vibes in a mixed-game tournament will more than makeup for any uncomfortableness you feel. “I love mixed game events,” said Huber. “Everyone has so much fun.”

The three-day event begins tonight but registration remains open until 17:00 on Friday (December 13).

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THE BABY-FACED ASSASSIN RIDES AGAIN

All bubble hands are brutal, but Bogdan Munteanu lost an absolute sickener in Prague last night when he ran kings into aces, flopped a king, but then saw his opponent hit an ace on the turn. That was that for the Romanian, and the rest of the EPT Prague players were in the money.

Sitting silently on the other end of the cooler was Luke Porter, a British player who happily padded his stack with the near 300K that had once belonged to Munteanu. It was a quiet and efficient hit-job, pulled off by a man whose youthful appearance belies more than 20 years’ poker experience.

Somewhere in London, there will have been a handful of poker players of a certain age thinking: I know that guy. They also will have recognised his methods.

To explain: back around the turn of the century, in the earliest of poker’s boom years, there was a player in some of the small London poker clubs also named Luke Porter. He was a Durham University student but looked young even then. He was always one of the best players in the game, however, and his opponents dubbed him the “Baby Faced Assassin”. (A profile still exists thanks to the Wayback Machine.)

Other players from the same card club, Gutshot, went on to great things. Bracelet winners Praz Bansi and James Dempsey were regulars. PLO specialists Richard Gryko and Richard Ashby were often there. And a few years later, a young Sam Grafton was always one to watch in the £5 and £10 re-buy events.

The Baby Faced Assassin, however, decided to lie low. He slipped out of view and seemed to have turned his back on the game for which he showed enormous early potential.

Until this year, that is.

In 2024, Luke Porter returned to live poker. And, yes, it’s the same one. He won the GUKPT Main Event in London for a career-best £116K, and entered the Eureka Prague Main Event here thanks to a Silver Pass win on PokerStars. He finished 30th for €12,770 earlier on this trip.

At time of writing, he’s a big stack with only 100 players left in the EPT Main Event. The Baby Faced Assassin is back.

“I’ve been playing for over 20 years, but I had a break in the middle where I was just playing occasionally with friends, and I started playing more regularly recently,” Porter confirms.

“I always enjoyed playing poker. I played a bit online during the pandemic and then got into playing live again. 2024 has been very good to me. I’ve run pretty well in some of the big tournaments I’ve played…It’s nice to have a couple of results.”

Porter was genuinely a stand-out talent at the Gutshot club, as well as in various other London casinos and home games. Poker was obviously a very different game back then, but with the Moneymaker effect sending thousands of players to the online sites, and to find whatever live action they could, there was buoyant scene and rapidly developing skills.

Porter might easily have decided to pursue the path to poker greatness, but instead took a full time job as a financial modeller in a ventures company, and has been making his money away from the tables.

“I didn’t really have the time to play poker while I was doing that,” he says. “I don’t know if there’s an overlap [in skills], but the maths based side of things is probably the most helpful.”

Porter, who is now 43, is wise enough to know that there’s still a long way to go in this tournament. But there’s just a lingering suspicion among players who crossed swords with him in the early 2000s that this day was always due to come — it’s just that it’s two decades later than first predicted.

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THE BEST PRAGUE PLAYER YOU’VE NEVER HEARD OF

Josef Schusteritsch is a name we don’t often see in the chip counts of PokerStars Live events. Not because he’s prone to early exits, but because live events like EPT Prague are merely “semi-vacations” from this surreptitious superstar’s day-to-day grind.

Perhaps you’re familiar with his PokerStars screen name, though:  “Sunni_92”. You’ll almost certainly be familiar with it – perhaps frustratingly so – if you’ve played any mid-to-high stakes Zoom on PokerStars in recent years.

That’s because in just two and a half years of playing, starting in 2019, the 32-year-old from Graz, Austria climbed from $50 buy-in Zoom games to multitabling at the $5,000 buy-in level, where he’s been a successful regular ever since.

This week Schusteritsch has been spending one of his “three to four” live event vacations a year at EPT Prague, having won a package in an online qualifier. At the start of play today he unbagged the biggest stack of all 17 remaining qualifiers (536,000) and at the time of writing, he’s increased his pile in the day’s opening levels.

“Live events in general are softer than the online cash environment I’m used to,” Schusteritsch tells us on a Main Event break. “There are a lot more recreational players, so it’s more fun.”

It was Schusteritsch who felt like the recreational when he made his EPT debut in Monte Carlo last year. Naive to the importance of washing his hands regularly after touching chips, he ended up getting sick and playing two full days in rough conditions. A slip-up was inevitable. 

“I missed an open raise and misclicked from the small blind and busted with close to 20 bigs,” he says, regretfully. “It was rough, but it happens. I’m glad I’m doing well here because I love EPTs. Hopefully, I can go deep.”

Sundays in Schusteritsch’s house always start with tournaments. It’s the one day of the week he’ll open the tournament lobby and dabble in the big MTTs, adding more and more cash game tables as he busts the comps. But if he sees an EPT Main Event qualifier running, he says he’ll always flick it in.

It wasn’t always this way for one of the best online cash players in the world. Heck, it wasn’t always the same game.

Schusteritsch’s professional gaming career began in the League Of Legends arena, albeit in the early days when being a professional meant earning “around $1K” a month. “Back then I was living with my parents so I didn’t have any costs,” he says. “It was a lot of fun.”

He then took a full-time job working in finance, having studied at an economics-focused school, and the work/play balance – coming home from the office and having to play League Of Legends for six hours – was causing him to burn out. He retired from that game, but soon found another.

“When the Covid lockdowns started I was working from home like everyone and I had a lot of free time, even when working,” he says. He’d played poker with his football club teammates as a teenager, so he started studying the game and playing $50 Zoom while keeping his work laptop nearby, just in case someone needed him.

A year later he was already considering leaving his job and playing professionally. Then, when the COVID restrictions were lifted and he was asked to return to the office full-time, it was no longer a consideration. “I gave myself a trial year as a poker pro and I’ve never looked back,” he says. “I probably ran very well at the time. If I compare myself now to back then I’m sure I was playing poorly, but then I was also playing low stakes.”

Now he plays the biggest daily cash games running on PokerStars, but he’s working on his tournament game, too. His knowledge of both poker disciplines puts him in good stead at EPT Prague. 

“I can’t say I’d keep up with someone who only studies tournaments, especially when stacks get shorter, but this is where EPT Main Events are so nice,” he says. “They have super deep structures and you can still have very deep stacks at the end of the tournament, so I guess that suits me really well.”

If he can make it to the end of this one, it will be fun to watch him work.

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GOLD PASS-WINNER VITELLI AMONG 17 QUALIFIERS IN THE HUNT

After late-night bubble drama at EPT Prague, 191 players returned to play Day 3 of the €5,300 Main Event.

They include Italian Gold Pass winner Silvio Vitelli, who described a racing heart and an adrenaline-soaked body as he bagged up a Main Event stack for the second time on Wednesday night.

If you get to the bagging stage twice at the EPT, you’re almost always in the money.

Vitelli is the last Gold Pass winner in the mix here, but there are 16 other PokerStars qualifiers heading into Day 3. These are the players who qualified via more traditional online routes, and they include former WSOP Main Event champion Espen Jorstad, breakout Italian star Enrico Camosci and Andorra-based qualifier extraordinaire Gerard Carbo.

The top-ranked qualifier at this stage is Austria’s Josef Schusteritsch, a player with a relatively modest live resume but who, as “Sunni_92” online, is a well-known high-stakes cash game crusher. We’ll endeavour to catch up with Schusteritsch very soon.

In the meantime, learn more about Vitelli, Gareth Devereux, Daniel Johnson and Endrit Geci, all of whom are still in the mix as well.

POKERSTARS QUALIFIERS INTO DAY 3

Josef Schusteritsch — 536,000
Enrico Camosci — 535,000
Gareth Devereux — 424,000
Aurimas Stanevicius — 329,000
Gerard Carbo — 303,000
Georgi Sandev — 288,000
Daniel Johnson — 284,000
Ludmil Ivanov — 240,000
Scott Hall — 170,000
Fabio Peluso — 149,000
Nicolaus Paszkiewicz — 141,000
Arthur Thiriart — 128,000
Espen Jørstad — 124,000
Silvio Vitelli — 92,000
Sebastian Trela — 82,000
Endrit Geci — 76,000
Ivan Kuziv — 53,000

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WELSHGAZ IS FLYING THE FLAG 

Of the 64 countries represented in the EPT Prague Main Event, just one player remains in the field to fly the flag for Wales – online qualifier Gareth Devereux. And it means a lot to him. 

But flying the flag is nothing new to Devereux. A professional online cash game player from Swansea who now lives in London, he’s known as “WelshGaz” on PokerStars and battles in his “bread and butter” $2/$5 Zoom games with an image of the Welsh flag as his avatar. 

“When I first started playing poker I thought it would be good to grow the game if people got behind players from their country, like they do in other sports,” he says on Day 2. “That was my thinking behind it.”

Devereux, 37, booked his trip to Prague by winning a full package in an online qualifier on PokerStars, and simply being here means a lot to him, too. For a long time, he wasn’t able to travel for poker; his mother sadly fell ill around 18 months ago and Devereux has spent that time looking after her rather than attending live events.

He now has more time and is thrilled to be playing only his second-ever EPT Main Event here in Prague, having made his EPT debut in Paris last year. “I’m a huge poker fan and have always wanted to play EPTs but it’s only been the past couple of years that I’ve had the funds to start doing it,” he says. “It’s a nice time of year to come to Prague and my girlfriend has come with me so it’s nice to get the hotel as well.”

“THIS IS WHAT I’VE ALWAYS WANTED TO DO”

Like so many professionals before him, Devereux’s poker journey started at university, specifically the Exeter Uni campus where he was studying maths and accounting 17 years ago. 

He always played but never seriously, instead using his degree to forge a career as a commodity trader in his hometown of Swansea. “It was quite an interesting and exciting job with a big risk aspect to it,” he says, and that experience helped him when he moved to London and transitioned to professional poker playing around eight years ago.

He’s been playing online cash ever since but started introducing tournaments to his schedule a couple of years ago. “I’ve realised there’s a lot to it and they’re very exciting,” he says. “I love the excitement aspect of tournaments.”

At the time of writing, he’s at a very exciting stage of the EPT Prague Main, as the field approaches the money bubble. It’s a situation Devereux believes he’s equipped to navigate. 

“I’ve got a bit of experience now and I’ve studied a hell of a lot, which helps with the nerves,” he says. “I still get nervous though. But I’m trying to enjoy it as well because this is what I’ve always wanted to do. I just want to do as well as I can and make correct decisions, then whatever happens happens.”

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CHIP OFF THE OLD BLOCK: BEN AND DOMINIC CULLEN JOIN FORCES IN PRAGUE

In 2009, 7-year-old Ben Cullen was at home in Nottingham, in the UK, dimly aware of something his dad, Dominic Cullen, was doing down in London. Dominic had intended to be home a few days earlier, but had continued to extend his stay in the UK capital, reluctantly leaving his wife alone to look after the five young children, including Ben.

That thing in London was actually the Main Event of the European Poker Tour (EPT), where Dominic had made it through a field of 730 entries to take a seat at the final table. He was a 42-year-old PokerStars qualifier at the time, playing only his fifth live tournament. He finished in fifth place, the top-ranking Brit, and earned £173,000.

“I said, ‘Look, I’ll go down and I can be back tonight, probably,'” Dominic recalls telling his wife, setting realistic expectations. “But then it kind of just went on and on and on.”

Fifteen years later, Dominic Cullen is back playing on the EPT. He won another online satellite on PokerStars for $55 and earned a full buy-in and expenses package to play the Main Event in Prague.

The difference this time is that Ben is no longer watching from home, nor having his swimming trip interrupted because of his dad’s poker success as has happened the first time. Rather, he’s here in Prague too, making his own debut as a player on the EPT.

Like father, like son. And it always seemed likely to be the case.

“I was just surrounded by it,” Ben says, detailing how poker has been part of the Cullen family’s life for as long as he can remember. Dominic’s brothers (Ben’s uncles) are enthusiastic players too, and Ben was interested enough even as a 7-year-old to want to know what his dad was actually up to in London that was causing all the excitement.

Rather than recalling the first time he learned the game, he said he can’t remember NOT knowing what poker was.

“He’s way better than me,” Dominic says of his son, describing how family home games developed into a more serious interest for Ben. On the occasion of his 18th birthday, Dominic gave his son a $200 PokerStars gift certificate. “That was his balance and he’s never looked back,” Dominic says.

The timing was bittersweet. Ben turned 18 right in the middle of the Covid pandemic, which meant the usual carousing was curtailed. His A-Level exams were postponed, university was deferred, and the PokerStars tables took the place of the usual post-college, pre-university excursions.

“I ended up just doing it [playing poker] for the whole year,” Ben says. “I couldn’t travel, and it was going quite well, so I did it for a year. Then I went to uni and did it part time, and now I’ve finished uni I’m doing it full time again.”

With a degree in maths under his belt, he is predominantly now an online tournament player — although he wasn’t quite as successful as his dad in qualifying for Prague. Instead, it’s the still-recreational Dominic who is footing the hotel and travel expenses for the trip, albeit as part of his own satellite package.

“I quite like the idea of travelling together,” Ben says. “I got a free hotel.”

It doesn’t take much to get Dominic fondly remembering 2009, although there’s a bit more to the story than first meets the eye. His original qualification package had been for the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA), but he had somehow forgotten that he had other commitments for the period when the poker world descended on Atlantis.

“I’d probably had too much to drink one night and I qualified online and I ran up to my wife and said, ‘We’re off to the Bahamas!'” Dominic recalls. “She turned to me and said, ‘Have you forgotten I’m seven months pregnant?'”

The baby (Ben’s youngest brother Toby) was due for January, and a trip to the Caribbean was clearly not possible for its father. Monte Carlo only a few months later didn’t work either, nor Barcelona a couple of months after that.

Eventually, Dominic was able to persuade PokerStars to let him play in London, with the proximity coupled with poker’s natural day one attrition rate allowing him to schedule it as a likely day trip. He says there were then some pretty fraught conversations with his wife as one day became two and then three.

“When it got to day four she was like, hold on a minute, this might be quite interesting,” Dominic says.

It helped that by that time Dominic and family were already well versed in the vagaries of gambling. A former maths teacher, he found himself making good money playing online poker during the early boom years, and then pivoted to sports betting in the early days of the online exchanges. This hobby became profitable enough that Dominic and his wife both left their jobs in the mid-2000s, becoming early adopters of automated trading. The year of the EPT qualification was actually a notable high point in the sports betting career.

“It was my best ever year,” Dominic says, “which is one of the reasons I was able to go and play the EPT and be quite comfortable with it.”

Accustomed to wagering significant sums already, the six-figure EPT score didn’t actually represent what it might have to other online qualifiers of the era. But Dominic describes it still as the most fun he’s ever had while turning a profit.

“It was still a big deal, because if you rate how I make my money, that £173K is my favourite money ever,” he says.

Dominic is still a recreational poker player, but admits the game still has him in its thrall. “Deep down I just want to play poker,” he says. “I play Sundays and during the festivals I’ll play two times a week. I like to be there with a glass of wine, have one screen on, multitask. I watch the football. I just love it.”

He adds: “I’m kind of a professional sports gambler, but what I really want to do is be a poker player.”

He can at least continue to play alongside Ben, who entered the game at a markedly different era to his dad.

“Poker’s so tough now, but what is true is that the young generation are willing to learn and change their game more quickly,” Dominic says. “They have a big advantage still over the guys who have been on the circuit forever. They don’t refresh their ideas very quickly.”

Ben says he does sometimes wish he could have played in the much more strategically naive era, when the EPT was in its infancy. But he adds that the resources available to new players are incomparable these days, and he has used them to his full advantage.

“It’s a lot easier to learn nowadays,” Ben says. “I used to watch all the Twitch streams, Lex and Spraggy and people. There’s so much out there just to make you good straight away.”

The pair are obviously keen supporters of one another’s game too, both relishing the lifestyle and the opportunities poker has offered them.

“The game has moved on so much,” Dominic says. “It’s a different level now, entirely, and for someone like me who has kind of managed to succeed in a different form of gambling, it’s like a really interesting challenge.”

They travel to Las Vegas every year to play the WSOP, while the EPT appearance is a rare treat, that just might have whetted the appetite afresh.

“My youngest is 16 now, so I will play a bit more,” Dominic says. “This is a bonus. It just popped up. But there might be a few more bonuses because I’ll try to qualify for them all now.”

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NO MORE FLYING UNDER THE RADAR FOR CUP WINNER ENDRIT GECI

When working through side event results on the European Poker Tour (EPT), you start to see the same familiar faces again and again. Players who seem to take down at least one trophy at every stop and have a gallery of winner’s photos, but because the tournaments they win aren’t EPT flagships, they don’t get a lot of media coverage.

Endrit Geci is one such serial spadie winner. The Brit, who lives in Coventry, is one of the UK’s most consistent and successful grinders, both live and online. He’s got just shy of $1M in live earnings and millions won online, but you won’t find a single interview with him… except for this one.

“I mainly play online,” Geci says when asked if he likes flying under the radar. “You don’t really get asked for interviews when you play online!”

We’re asking for one now because, on Sunday, December 8, Geci took down the enormous €550 Eureka Cup in Prague, topping a 2,716-entry field to win €165,240 – the biggest live score of his career.

“It felt great. It’s my first six-figure score live so it’s nice to tick that off,” Geci says on a break from the EPT Main Event, which he won a package for on PokerStars behind the screen name “BOOOOOM92”. 

He continues: “It’s also amazing to get so many buy-ins back from a €550 buy-in. To beat such a large field, that’s tough. You have to run really well so I was blessed to have the opportunity to go that deep and win it.”

SPADIE COLLECTOR

Geci says that EPT stops are by far his favourite events to play, and it shows. 

At EPT Barcelona in September, he took down a €1K NLHE event for €53,730. In February he topped a €1K Hyper Turbo at EPT Paris for €40,960. And in Prague last year he won what was his biggest live cash until his Cup victory: €89,870 for taking down another €1K NLHE side event.

“I love EPT stops because they’re really professional,” he says. “Everything runs really smoothly, you know where you need to go, and everything’s done quickly. As a poker player that’s what you want. ”

EARLY DAYS

How many university degrees were abandoned in favour of professional poker careers? It’s one of poker’s great unanswerable questions, but Geci’s is one on the pile. 

He’d already discovered poker by the time his course began and got the bankroll ball rolling using £70 from one of his student loan payments. Through low-stakes cash and tournaments, he was able to build it up slowly, eventually accumulating enough that he dropped out of uni when he was 21. “Aeronautical engineering was fun, but it wasn’t…poker,” he says.

Now playing professionally, Geci dug into his stats and records and realised that cash games were making him the most money. “When you’ve got a small bankroll, cash is very important,” he says. “So I played loads. I span it up to around £70K and then started playing tournaments again.”

It’s obvious from his early Hendon Mob cashes that tournaments were Geci’s first love. From 2011 to 2015 his cashes exclusively come from tournaments with buy-ins of £40 or less. 

But Geci’s come a long way from £10 tournaments at the Didsbury Grosvenor. 

LOCKDOWN BREAKOUT

While the COVID-19 pandemic slowed down life in most professions, it had the opposite effect for professional online poker players like Geci. Forced to stay inside, it was the first time in his career that he played poker almost every day, and enjoyed doing so. 

The results started flooding in. Geci finished runner-up in an online World Series of Poker (WSOP) event for $223,978 in August 2020, narrowly missing out on his first bracelet. He then won a $5K buy-in Main Event online for a breakout $774,838 score in March 2021.

“That kicked everything off, to be fair,” he says. “I got into a routine and improved rapidly because I was playing so much. That was the start of it all.”

When live poker returned Geci took that online momentum and transferred it to the brick-and-mortar. He travels the circuit with many of the brightest minds in British poker and can’t stress enough how important your friendship group is when climbing the poker ladder. “They’re the ones you’re going to talk a lot of hand histories with,” he says. “They’re the ones who are going to help and support you when you’re feeling low or doubting yourself.”

With so many titles and cashes on his CV, we can’t imagine Geci has doubted himself for a while. Whether it comes here in Prague or another event soon, no one would be surprised if his next winner’s photo saw him hoisting an EPT Main Event trophy.

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FULL DETAILS OF ANOTHER RECORD-BREAKER

The €5,300 EPT Prague 2024 Main Event set a new record for this destination, with 1,458 entries from 1,049 unique players and 409 re-entries.

Prior to the tournament this week, the previous EPT Prague record came last year, with 1,285 entries.

(Please note that the record turnout applies only to total entries and not to unique players. The EPT Prague 2016 Main Event, which ran in a freezeout format, featured 1,192 unique participants.)

Key numbers from EPT Prague 2024 Main Event:

Total entries: 1,458
Unique players: 1,049
Re-entries: 409
Prize pool: €7,071,300
First prize: €1,146,500
215 places paid, with an €8,850 min-cash

EPT Prague YOY comparison:
13.5% year-on-year increase in total entries (1,458 vs. 1,285)
12.1% year-on-year increase in unique participants (1,049 vs. 936)

Nationality stats:
64 countries represented — same number as in 2023

Top five nations: Italy (97 players or 9.2% of the field), France (95 or 9.1%), Germany (86 or 8.2%), the United Kingdom (74 or 7.1%), Israel (46 or 4.4%)

For reference, EPT Prague 2023 Main Event’s top five nations were Italy (79), France (78), Germany (68), the UK (48), and Sweden (48).

EPT Main Event overall numbers (including EPT Prague 2024):

This is the 146th EPT Main Event
114,225 total entries in EPT Main Events
€604,177,241 total prize pool in EPT Main Events

EPT PRAGUE MAIN EVENT HISTORY:

2007: 555 entries, €2,530,240 prize pool, Arnaud Mattern (France) for €708,400
2008: 570 entries, €2,764,500 prize pool, Salvatore Bonavena (Italy) for €774,000
2009: 586 entries, €2,930,000 prize pool, Jan Skampa (Czech Republic) for €682,000
2010: 563 entries, €2,730,550 prize pool, Roberto Romanello (UK) for €640,000
2011: 772 entries, €3,501,700 prize pool, Martin Finger (Germany) for €720,000
2012: 864 entries, €4,190,400 prize pool, Ramzi Jelassi (Sweden) for €835,000
2013: 1,007 entries, €4,883,950 prize pool, Julian Track (Germany) for €725,700
2014: 1,107 entries, €5,535,000 prize pool, Stephen Graner (USA) for €969,000
2015: 1,044 entries, €5,063,400 prize pool, Hossein Ensan (Germany) for €754,510
2016: 1,192 entries, €5,781,200 prize pool, Jasper Meijer van Putten (Netherlands) for €699,300
2017: 855 entries, €4,146,750 prize pool, Kalidou Sow (France) for €675,000
2018: 1,174 entries, €5,693,900 prize pool, Paul Michaelis (Germany) for €840,000
2019: 1,154 entries, €5,596,900 prize pool, Mikalai Pobal (Belarus) for €1,005,600
2022 (Mar): 1,190 entries, €5,771,500 prize pool, Grzegorz Glowny (Poland) for €692,252
2022 (Dec): 1,267 entries, €6,144,950 prize pool, Jordan Saccucci (Canada) for €913,250
2023: 1,285 entries, €6,232,250 prize pool, Padraig O’Neill (Ireland) for €1,030,000
2024: 1,458 entries, €7,071,300 prize pool, €1,146,500 for the winner

Statistical research: Jan Kores, EPT Media Co-ordinator

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GOLD PASS WINNERS TO FOLLOW INTO DAY 2

Eleven bucks doesn’t go very far in the modern world. Unless you know about the PokerStars Power Path that is.

Today in Prague, Silvio Vitelli, from Telese in the south of Italy, will join Sebastian Sylvester, of Dortmund, Germany, in the field of Day 2 of the EPT Main Event. Both men are amateur poker players — keen enthusiasts, but with other jobs away from the tables — who earned their seats in the tournament via the Power Path. They paid no more than €11 for online tournament tickets and spun it into Gold Passes. They won buy-ins for the Eureka Main Event, the Eureka Cup and the EPT Main Event, plus hotel and travel expenses.

Crucially, they both successfully played through Day 1A to take a seat in the freezeout phase of the tournament. If they’re still seated this time tomorrow, they’ll be deep in the money.

Sylvester is a 41-year-old electrician, who learned poker about 20 years ago and has played it on and off since then. He is a semi-regular player in the Dortmund casinos and he plays a bit online, but this Gold Pass, worth around $10,000 (or its euro equivalent) represents a new high point for him.

“I have played Power Path for a few months,” he says. “I first got a Silver Pass then a month later a Gold Pass. It was very lucky.”

He was initially tempted to visit Cyprus, but the lure of the long-establish stop in the Czech Republic won out. “Prague for me has more prestige,” Sylvester says, adding that the opportunity to travel is one of the most exciting aspects of being a poker player.

“It’s my goal to see the world,” he says. “That’s always what has fascinated me in poker; you can combine everything.”

He adds: “My friends ask me a lot what it means, and I tell them I can play the biggest tournaments I ever wanted. Everyone who loves poker should try it. If you get a few hours time, do it!”

Vitelli is a 32-year-old personal trainer, who only took up poker around four years ago, playing with friends. He enjoyed the game immediately and began to study a little, but still says he couldn’t believe it when he won the Gold Pass. “I was super happy,” he says, via an interpreter.

Vitelli visited EPT Prague last year and played the $550 Eureka Cup, but didn’t have the bankroll to take a seat in the Main Event. Having won the Gold Pass, it was a no brainer for him to return to the city he enjoyed so much the first time and take a shot at the big time.

Both Vitelli and Sylvester said they were nervous when they first sat down to play the €1,100 Eureka Main Event, and neither made the money. But experience breeds confidence, and they both spoke of being far more relaxed by the time they played the Eureka Cup.

Vitelli span his buy-in into a 250th-place finish, which was good for a €1,130 cash. He talked with great pride about picking up his first documented cash, which comes with a profile on the Hendon Mob and proof of his achievement.

“The most important thing is to have a flag,” he says.

Sylvester begins Day 2 with 33,500 and will have former EPT champion Davidi Kitai as a neighbour. Vitelli has 71,000, more than double the starting stack. EPT Prague has already broken attendance records and these two Gold Pass winners and right in the thick of it.

You heard them: get involved in the Power Path too!

GOLD PASS WINNERS LATEST

INTO DAY 2

Xavier Coutereel (Belgium) — Into Day 2 with 94,500
Gianluca Somma (Italy) — Into Day 2 with 76,500
Silvio Vitelli (Italy) — Into Day 2 with 71,000

Sebastian Sylvester (Germany) — Into Day 2 with 33,500

ELIMINATED DAY 1

Jean-Michel Ploch (France)
Kai Penzersinski (Germany)
Finn Zwad (Austria)
Loris Baroni (France)
Remy Beland (Canada)
Samuel Dalleau (France)
Andro Scarpa (Croatia)

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WELCOME TO THE €600M TOUR

There were no fireworks. There was no fanfare. But today in Prague, the European Poker Tour (EPT) reached a notable landmark.

Through 21 years and 145 previous EPT Main Events, total prize pools for the EPT sat at €597,105,941. When the prize pool here grew beyond €2,894,050, we hit the €600 million mark for EPT prize pools.

That’s right: the European Poker Tour has eclipsed €600 million in prize pools — and that’s Main Events alone.

The people who watch EPT stats (essentially a couple of particularly grubby press-room denizens) knew this moment was coming this week. We’d — sorry, they’d — been monitoring things through Barcelona and Cyprus, where everything pointed to Prague as the place the landmark would be reached.

EPT Prague prize pools have been greater than €3.5 million every year since 2011 (last year’s was €6.1 million) so it was never in doubt. And at some point during the rush to register for Day 1B today, the magic number was passed.

For those of you who are interested, here’s where we stand stats-wise heading into Prague. By the time numbers are made official tomorrow, we’ll be able to update these and start the countdown to €700 million.

EPT STATS

First EPT Main Event: Barcelona, September 2004
Main Events: 145
Prize pools: €597,105,941
First-place prizes: €115,683,736

RUSH ON CARD PROTECTORS AFTER PECULIAR HAND IN PRAGUE

Greg Raymer had a fossil. Humberto Brenes had a toy shark. And Hrvoje Mitrovic? He’s got a lot of regrets.  

A peculiar hand took place early on Day 1B of the EPT Prague Main Event, one that reminds us of the dangers of idle hands at the poker table, and one that could soon see the PokerStars Store sell out of card protectors.

Here’s what happened.

It was Level 2 and the blinds were 100/200 with a 200 big blind ante. Players started with stacks of 30,000.

According to the action recounted to PokerNews reporters, a player opened from the button and Mitrovic called from the small blind. Paawan Bansal then three-bet squeezed from the big blind and only Mitrovic called.

The flop came 2♣ J♦ 4♣ and Mitrovic check-called a c-bet, then check-called again on the A♦ turn. The river was the 10♠ and this time Mitrovic quickly moved all in for 23,000 – roughly two times the size of the pot – forcing Bansal to assess the situation.

“What are you doing to me here?” said Bansal, according to PokerNews. “Will you show if I fold?”

Here’s the thing. Bansal was holding 4♠ 3♠ and only had a pair of fours, good for fourth pair on the board.

While Bansal racked his brains trying to suss out a potential bluff, Mitrovic – who had been shielding his cards with both hands since moving all in – shifted his hands and inadvertently exposed his cards – K♦ 8♦ for a missed flush draw – before scrambling to flip them back down.

That brutal momentary fumble ended up costing the Croatian his tournament life, as Bansal’s decision instantly became easy. “Sorry, I have to call,” he said, and he did.

“This is sick,” said Mitrovic as he officially turned over his hand. Bansal showed the winner and as he was pulling in the pot he said: “Sorry man, you either had king-queen or nothing, I wanted to call.”

We’ll never know if that’s actually what was going through Bansal’s mind, but one thing’s for sure: you do not want what happened to Mitrovic to happen to you.

We’re all guilty of shuffling chips or sliding our cards back and forth from time to time, and accidents will happen. But if you struggle to maintain a Chidwickian, statuesque posture when you’re being stared down, you might want to consider using a chip or a card protector to avoid such nasty outcomes.

You’ll find card protectors over at the PokerStars Store in Prague, located in the main lobby of the Hilton. But a card protector can be anything you want it to be.

Here’s a gallery of card protectors we’ve seen over the years.

GOLD PASS UPDATE

Six Gold Pass winners took their shot at the EPT Prague Main Event on Day 1A. Four of them perished, but two progressed to Day 2, which means Silvio Vitelli and Sebastian Sylvester will be preparing for another battle on Wednesday. If they get through that, they’ll be in the money.

The remaining five Gold Pass winners will take their seats in today’s field, so good luck to Remy Beland, Samuel Dalleau, Xavier Coutereel, Gianluca Somma and Andro Scarpa.

INTO DAY 2
Silvio Vitelli (Italy) — Into Day 2 with 71,000
Sebastian Sylvester (Germany) — Into Day 2 with 33,500

PLAYING DAY 1B
Remy Beland (Canada)
Samuel Dalleau (France)
Xavier Coutereel (Belgium)
Gianluca Somma (Italy)
Andro Scarpa (Croatia)

ELIMINATED DAY 1A
Jean-Michel Ploch (France)
Kai Penzersinski (Germany)
Finn Zwad (Austria)
Loris Baroni (France)

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TSVETANOV TOPS RECORD-BREAKING EUREKA PRAGUE FOR €449K

Thousands of recreational and professional poker players convened in Prague this week, joining 57 Power Path winners and 99 online qualifiers to battle in the €1,100 Eureka Prague Main Event. 

Last year’s event broke records and awarded more than half a million euros to the winner, but now there’s a new record. With 4,732 total entries and a prize pool of €4,542,720, this edition of Eureka Prague became the biggest in the event’s 13-year history. 

Entering Monday’s finale, Martin Tsvetanov was in pole position. But the Bulgarian cash game specialist suffered a nightmare start, losing half his stack in the day’s opening level. Three-handed, he was down to just 10 big blinds. But he never gave up hope.

Now he’s the champion. After five days of play, Tsvetanov defeated Austria’s Gerald Karlic heads-up and is walking away with €449,034 – the biggest score of his career – following a heads-up deal that netted Karlic €396,086. He’s not walking away far, though.

“I’m ready to play some more right now!” he told PokerNews, post-victory. “I haven’t processed it yet. I’m going through hands in my head. It’s life-changing, it will hit me in a few days.”

FINAL DAY ACTION

The UK’s Jack Sinclair stole the headlines heading into the final session, for a couple of reasons. Not only was Sinclair the most accomplished and decorated player of the 14 remaining hopefuls, but he was also hoping to make the Eureka Prague final table for the second time in three years, having finished fourth for €168,560 back in 2022. 

But this time Sinclair’s run ended in eighth place. Down to 14 big blinds, he opened for 5 million (leaving 2 million behind) with ace-ten off and called all-in when Ricardo Caridade shoved with pocket fives. Sinclair got no help from the board while Caridade ended up with a full house, and the Brit departed with €62,960.

Alexantr Spatharis and Matthew Micallef were next to fall before the final five players paused play to discuss a deal. No agreement could be reached, however, and the battle recommenced with Caridade the big chip leader.

That lead was quickly snatched by Gerald Karlic who scored a massive double up through Caridade with pocket sevens against ace-king off, and those exact hands (albeit a suited ace-king this time) collided minutes later to determine the fifth-place finisher. Theodoros Ampelikiotis couldn’t hit against the sevens of Ryan Plant and the Greek player picked up €138,370.

Unfortunately for Plant, he didn’t hold onto those chips for long. After three-betting for the majority of his stack with pocket threes he called all in for just shy of 15 big blinds with pocket threes and couldn’t crack Tsvetanov’s pocket jacks. He collected €179,890 for fourth.

Tsvetanov was down to 10 big blinds three-handed but surged up the counts, raking in three significant pots in a row – two at the expense of Karlic. He regained the lead and eliminated Caridade in third place when his ace-ten off hit an ace to crack Caridade’s pocket queens. 

The final two made a deal and heads-up play didn’t last long. A fortunate river card saw Tsvetanov capture most of Karlic’s chips, and he couldn’t survive when he was forced all-in the next hand. 

€1,100 Eureka Main Event (Live Updates)
Dates: December 4-9, 2024
Entries: 4,732
Prize pool: €4,542,720

1. Martin Tsvetanov (Bulgaria) – €449,034*
2. Gerald Karlic (Austria) – €396,086*
3. Ricardo Caridade (Portugal) – €233,860
4. Ryan Plant (UK) – €179,890
5. Theodoros Ampelikiotis (Greece) – €138,370
6. Matthew Micallef (Malta) – €106,400
7. Alexantr Spatharis (Greece) – €81,680
8. Jack Sinclair (UK) – €62,960
9. Mikkel Neilsen (Denmark) – €48,430

*indicates a deal

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THOMAS SANTERNE LANDS SECOND SHR TITLE OF THE YEAR

The biggest buy-in event on the EPT Prague calendar ended tonight in a ding-dong battle between two stars at differing stages of glittering careers.

Thomas Santerne, one of high stakes poker’s newest and brightly shining stars, squared off against Niklas Astedt, an online crusher of more than a decade’s standing, considered by many to be the best tournament player in the world.

Astedt, as “Lena900”, has won everything there is to win in the online arena, but had no major live title to speak of. Santerne, by contrast, blazed onto the scene with an EPT Super High Roller win in Paris this year, not much more than a year since his first ever documented tournament score. He also already won the €20,000 event here in Prague this year, and was on a roll.

Would Santerne bank another? Or could Astedt finally get over the line? They arranged a heads-up deal to take away some of the financial uncertainty, and then Santerne sealed the deal once again.

Very few players have two EPT Super High Roller titles. None have ever before done it in a calendar year.

Santerne won €385,725 to Astedt’s €355,775, with Santerne’s K♣ 10♠ hitting a ten on the turn to beat Astedt’s A♠ 4♠ to complete the win. It’s another tremendous success for the 24-year-old Frenchman, who now has matching SHR trophies to use as bookends.

TOURNAMENT ACTION

The tournament began on Sunday and played through its opening day with a snug 18-strong field. With seven more entries added to the pool at the start of Day 2, the prize pool hit €1.2 million and promised the usual stiff competition.

Tournament officials announced the prize pool, revealing that five places would be paid. Luminaries including Steve O’Dwyer, Martin Kabrhel and Team Pro Sam Grafton departed before the bubble, and when Teun Mulder got entangled in a pot with overnight leader Nikita Kuznetsov, Mulder ended on the rail in the most unfortunate spot of all.

With everyone in the money, Kuznetsov had an enormous lead over second-placed Santerne. But that lead evaporated in the blink of an eye as Kuznetsov ran A♠ K♦ into Astedt’s aces and Lena900 took over at the top.

Santerne then took control, ousting Espen Jorstad in fifth (€113,000) and, eventually, Kuznetsov in fourth, but only after a long period of back-and-forth. Kuznetsov had doubled and then been trimmed down again, eventually perishing when his pocket eights lost a race to Santerne’s A♠ Q♠ . Kuznetsov took €140,000.

Sergey Lebedev had been a short stack through all of the jostling elsewhere, but his time was finally up in third. He jammed with A♥ 9♣ and couldn’t beat Astedt’s A♠ Q♣ . Lebedev won €193,000.

Although it was Astedt who ousted Lebedev, Santerne still had a near two-to-one chip lead going into heads up play. However a big double for Astedt, with K♥ Q♥ rivering a straight to beat Santerne’s two pair, brought the stacks close to level and the pair agreed a deal soon after.

Santerne’s marginal lead confirmed a €360,725 payday for him. Astedt locked up €355,775. With €25K on the side to play for, the duo set about finishing it off.

Astedt moved marginally ahead, but as he had done throughout, Santerne was capable of battling back. Santerne applied maximum pressure on Astedt and even Lena900 could not compete.

Hats off to two-timer Thomas Santerne. After Kayhan Mokri’s back-to-back in Barcelona, Santerne has similarly proved that his Super High Roller emergence was no fluke.

RESULTS

€50,000 EPT Super High Roller
Dates: December 8-9, 2024
Entries: 25 (including 5 re-entries)
Prize pool: €1,187,500

1 – Thomas Santerne, France – €385,725*
2 – Niklas Astedt, Sweden – €355,775*
3 – Sergey Lebedev, United Kingdom, €193,000
4 – Nikita Kuznetsov, Russia, €140,000
5 – Espen Jorstad, Norway, €113,000

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THE DEALER BECOMES THE QUALIFIER

Few players in the EPT Prague Main Event have spent more time at a poker table than Daniel Johnson. That’s because he’s usually found sliding out the cards rather than peeling them himself. 

Johnson is a freelance dealer by trade but this week the 29-year-old from near Glasgow has left his smart black work clothing at home, instead packing his suitcase with comfortable hoodies and shorts. For the next seven days, he’ll enjoy the full online qualifier experience at EPT Prague; an experience that includes entry into the Main Event and side events, free merch and off-the-felt activities, a room at the luxurious Hilton Hotel, and more. “It’s a great hotel,” he says. “One of the best I’ve stayed in.”

But even Johnson isn’t able to avoid another important element of the authentic online qualifier experience: butterflies in the stomach.

“I’m comfortable at the table because I’ve been sat at them for years, but there’s still an element of excitement because this is such a big tournament,” he tells us on the first break of Day 1A. “I’ve got a few nerves but it’s all the same, isn’t it? Whether you’re playing this or £40 re-buys at your local casino, it’s the same stuff.”

If you don’t believe him that a €5K could play the same as a £40 re-buy, Johnson says there’s a player at his table who has already folded three times pre-flop when he had the option to check. 

“He opened the button and I had pocket kings and three-bet large,” he says. “He snap four-bet, I peeled and there’s a jack-high board. I check-call then check-fold on the turn to a jam. So already I’ve probably been dealt kings versus aces! It’s been crazy but good, it’s exciting.”

DOING IT FOR THE DEALERS…AND FOR MUM

Daniel Johnson was able to win his EPT package from a humble €5 satellite (although he admits it took him a few go’s to get through). From there he won his way into a €55 and then won a seat in the final €530 qualifier. “It was the first I’d been in and I ran like God and won it,” he says. 

His colleagues and poker friends are excited to see him sit on the other side of the poker table, but while this is his first EPT Main Event and the biggest event he’s played, he’s got some prior experience in €1K events, even cashing the Eureka here in Prague two years ago.

We wonder, do his years working as a dealer and being around poker so much help him when he’s playing at the tables? “I’d say so,” he says. “I do like to think about hands when I’m dealing, although it depends on how tired I am and how far into the shift I am.”

Still, he’d rather take on some lengthy shifts dishing out cards at the poker table than the hours he used to work. “My first real job was working in a fruit and veg warehouse,” he tells us. “That required a 4am start and it was hard work. I’m glad I no longer have to get up that early.”

Johnson hopes to continue winning his way into poker events around the world, aiming to travel to South America and the USA to play cards one day. But first up he has a goal a bit closer to home.

“My mum didn’t understand what I had won which was funny,” he says. “She’s at home watching the German livestream – she has no idea what’s going on but she’s hoping to catch a glimpse of me. I think if I made it into the money she’d realise it’s quite a big deal!”

SPIN & GO CHAMPIONSHIP

Johnson is also in Prague for another reason. He was the first online qualifier to book their seat in the maiden Spin & Go Championship that takes place during EPT Prague, finishing in the top spots of the first Leaderboard period (October 7-20) and then taking down the exclusive freeroll that followed to win his seat in the special event. That package was worth €2,735 and included:

• €1,430 Spin & Go Championship buy-in
• Hotel stay for two nights
• €500 in expenses

“Spins are perfect for starting and ending a session,” he says. “They kick your mind into gear straight away, and they’re also a nice way to wind down with a last buy-in of the night.”

It’s not just the adrenaline-pumping pace that Johnson loves about Spins, but also the winner-takes-all element. “It’s nice to turn off the ICM side of my brain and just play for the win,” he says.

Now he can’t wait to sit down at a real table and play some three-handed poker. “It’s virtually unheard of,” he says. “It will be amazing to be part of the very first live Spin & Go tournament held by PokerStars. It’ll be a nice change of pace compared to the usual nine- or ten-handed live tournaments.”

Johnson will be part of the 81-player field battling at the Prague Hilton from December 14-15 for a share of $100K in prizes. The winner will get €25,000, with €15,000 going to the overall runner-up and €10,000 awarded to third place. There will also be mystery prizes coming into play in Round 2. 

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CHOICES, CHOICES, CHOICES AT EPT PRAGUE

EPT Prague is buzzing.

It will have escaped no poker fan’s notice that there are a lot of major poker events taking place across the world right now, only one of which is here in Prague. But the Eureka Poker Tour main event recorded a record-breaking number of entries, while other side events have been buoyant as well.

Plenty of players, particularly those who favour mid-stakes events, have decided Prague is the place to be.

That is not really surprising. The EPT has a distinctive and healthy vibe, which really hits its highest notes when the Main Event begins. Today, there is poker action in three separate rooms, each packed to the gills, and each offering precisely the kind of action relished by large portions of the poker community.

If we start at the top, both literally and figuratively, we begin in the so-called Liben room, host today of the €50,000 Super High Roller. Liben is to be found on the mezzanine level of the Hilton Hotel, upstairs from the breakfast room.

The €50K is the biggest buy-in of the week, with the densest concentration of recognisable players. Although the other global events have the super high roller demographic most firmly in their sights, this tournament nonetheless attracted 25 entries and put €1,187,500 in the prize pool. The winner will get €450,500.

At time of writing, Sam Grafton sits alongside Martin Kabrhel, ensuring a high volume level from the two tables in play. Despite the rope around the outside of this area, and the prohibitive buy-in, these players still engage in the kind of table talk more common in a casino nightly event.

The Liben room hosts two other tournaments as well: the €5,200 PLO Single Re-entry, whose line-up today includes Andras Nemeth, Jerry Odeen, Anton Bergstom and Kai Kwan Lau, among other titans, plus the €550 HORSE, in which Georgina “GJReggie” James flies the Red Spade, alongside others including Martin Staszko, Frederik Brink and Tobias Leknes.

There are many poker tours on which just this room’s action would represent a successful event. But that’s only the start.

Across the other side of the mezzanine is the Hilton Ballroom, which is usually the cash-game area. Five tables of €5-€10 hold’em feature on a waitlist that also boasts PLO games of up to €50-€50. But the room also has an EPT Main Event satellite today, where Anton Wigg and Soraya Estrada are among those hoping to “Win Your Seat at 50,000” — a reference to the manner of qualification on the EPT that encourages players to build a stack quickly in a satellite, rather than sit around and grind it out.

If these players get through the tournament, they can traipse downstairs to join the Main Event proper in the main conference room. Approximately half of the room is taken up with Flight A of the EPT Main Event. Another quarter houses the final day of the €2K Eureka High Roller, in which Parker “tonkaaa” Talbot, Juha Helppi and Maria Lampropulos are looking for a €491,000 first prize.

The field there weighed in at 1,652 entries and put more than €3 million in the prize pool.

It’s also the final day of the €1,100 Eureka Main Event, with the last 14 playing to a winner. Imagine turning €1,100 into €517,730. Someone will do precisely that today.

All being said, there’s nowhere else that offers a breadth of choice to match the EPT. The biggest buy-in today was €50K. The smallest €550. There’s a hyper turbo later on with 10-minute levels, while the EPT Main Event moves to 90 minutes per level on Day 2.

There’s also a full slate of exceptional activities, from ice curling to river cruises, plus numerous meet-ups and parties, all entirely free.

It’s only part of the reason why the EPT remains one of poker’s success stories into its second decade. And long will it continue too.

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ELEVEN GOLD PASSES IN PLAY IN PRAGUE

As 2024 approaches its conclusion, the PokerStars Power Path continues to be the most efficient way for all players to realise their dreams of playing on the European Poker Tour (EPT).

Here in Prague, another 11 players have earned not only their €5,300 EPT Main Event buy-in, but also full expenses for their trip to the Czech Republic, meaning this is more than just a poker tournament. Whatever happens at the tables, this is a complete vacation. There’s a full slate of parties and activities on offer; there’s the chance to meet PokerStars Ambassadors and fellow PokerStars players; and there is, of course, the chance to win life-changing money.

Remember, the nature of Power Path means that nobody has paid more than $11 for their Gold Pass. Sure, they may have entered a few times in the attempt to get over the line. But the highest level any player can enter Power Path for cash is $11 (or equivalent). After that, it’s all about winning through to a $55 tournament, held on a Sunday, where the winner snags the Gold Pass.

This very deliberately excludes the sharkiest sharks from the competition. The biggest players often don’t want to play a tournament costing only $11, allowing more recreational players a run at the top prize.

Our roll of honour here in Prague is as follows. Some of these players are more experienced than others, none is exactly a household name. We’ll look forward to catching up with a few of these players as the tournament progresses.

Remy Beland (Canada)
Xavier Coutereel (Belgium)
Kai Penzersinski (Germany)
Loris Baroni (France)
Sebastian Sylvester (Germany)
Finn Zwad (Austria)
Andro Scarpa (Croatia)
Gianluca Somma (Italy)
Silvio Vitelli (Italy)
Jean-Michel Ploch (France)
Samuel Dalleau (France)

POKERSTARS POWER PATH HALL OF FAME

Paul Jurcuta — 68th at EPT Barcelona 2023 – €23,650
Angelo Marrone — 59th at EPT Barcelona 2024 — €20,300
Pablo Ubierna — 62nd at EPT Barcelona 2024 — €20,300
Guillermo Gordo — 34th at EPT Cyprus 2024 — $20,980
Dionisio Vitti — 87th at EPT Barcelona 2024 — €17,600
Kevinas Korsakas — 58th at EPT Monte Carlo 2024 – €15,200
Ivan Zhechev — 91st at EPT Cyprus 2024 $13,820
Bartosz Kolendowski — 177th at EPT Barcelona 2024 — €11,600
Marcelo Sgari — 96th at EPT Monte Carlo 2024 – €11,500
Cameron Sinclair — 220th at EPT Barcelona 2024 – €10,050
Grzegorz Wyraz — 191st at EPT Barcelona 2024 — €10,050
Noa Chan – 204th at EPT Paris 2024 – €9,900
Przemyslaw Cebrat — 161st at EPT Cyprus 2024 for $9,100

Read more about the Power Path

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ABOUT EPT PRAGUE

December’s festivities make it the most wonderful time of the year, but the weeks leading up to the holidays are pretty great too. And there’s nowhere that poker players from around the world would rather spend their time than in Prague for the European Poker Tour (EPT).

It might be chilly outside, but EPT Prague 2024 has plenty of poker action to heat things up inside the Hilton Prague at the King’s Casino. The festival begins with the Eureka Poker Tour – always massive for a €1,100 buy-in – before moving up in stakes to the EPT line-up.

And this year we have a very exciting new addition in the very first Spin & Go Live Championship, an exclusive event for online qualifiers which takes place throughout the festival.

Plus, when you’re not at the tables, you get to wrap up warm and explore one of Europe’s most beautiful cities. From the market stalls and Christmas trees at the Old Town Square to the bustling Charles Bridge and stunning Prague Castle, as well as your pick of incredible (and affordable) restaurants, Prague is one of those places you’ll want to return to again and again.

Poker players certainly do, and that’s why the EPT is back for another year. 

Want to join us this year? Then get these dates in your diaries now: December 4-15, 2024.

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KEY DATES AND FULL SCHEDULE

December 4-15, 2024

See below for key tournament dates.

EUREKA:

Main Event: December 4-9 – €1,100

Cup: December 7-8 – €550

High Roller: December 8-9 – €2,200

EPT:

Super High Roller: December 8-10 – €50,000

Main Event: December 9-15 – €5,300

Mystery Bounty: December 11-13 – €3,000

Mixed Game Main Event: December 12-14 – €2,200

High Roller: December 13-15 – €10,300

You can look through the full EPT Prague 2024 schedule here.

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EPT PRAGUE STREAM SCHEDULE

You can follow the action live with English-language cards-up coverage on the central/global channels, hosted by James Hartigan, Joe Stapleton, Griffin Benger, Nick Walsh and Maria Ho.

There will also be streams on our French, Spanish and Brazilian channels alongside broadcasts in Italian and German (on Felix Schneiders’ channels).

Wednesday December 11

12:30 CET
EPT PRAGUE €5K MAIN EVENT – DAY 2

Thursday December 12

12:30 CET
EPT PRAGUE €5K MAIN EVENT – DAY 3

Friday December 13

12:30 CET
EPT PRAGUE €5K MAIN EVENT – DAY 4

Saturday December 14

12:30 CET
EPT PRAGUE €5K MAIN EVENT – DAY 5

Sunday December 15

13:00 CET
EPT PRAGUE €5K MAIN EVENT – FINAL TABLE

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CITY TRAVEL GUIDE

Prague is a popular stop on the EPT circuit, with hectic tournament action and a wide variety of cash games, complemented by a beautiful city packed with bars and restaurants that never break the bank.

Here is the complete guide to the event including a look back at some landmark moments, and everything you need to know at or away from the tables.

EPT Prague: Landmarks from 17 years in the Czech Republic, plus city travel guide

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ACTIVITIES GUIDE

Take a closer look at some of the off-the-felt EPT Prague activities on offer to players and their guests in the scintillating Czech capital in our Activities Guide.

Prague is a delight and you can take advantage of the incredible winter delights the city has to offer. But here’s the full slate of EPT Prague activities laid on by PokerStars, all of which are free to attend.

EPT PRAGUE 2024 ACTIVITIES GUIDE

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WHAT HAPPENED LAST YEAR?

In 2023 the incredibly popular Padraig O’Neill — “Smidge” to his friends — took down the record-breaking EPT Main Event, beating a field of 1,285 entries and banking €1.03 million.

The 34-year-old from Drumlish came to the five-handed final table with the shortest stack and sat to the immediate right of the soaraway leader Jon Kyte. But while many were expecting Kyte’s victory to be a mere formality, O’Neill had other ideas. He played the best poker of his life when the pressure was at its highest, wowing commentators and viewers alike with immaculate timing and precise reading of pretty much every situation.

“I was hoping to come fourth or third at best,” O’Neill admitted during the winner’s presentation. “I didn’t think I’d get heads up. This is surreal.”

Meanwhile, we also saw Austria’s Alexander Tkatschew outlast a record-breaking Eureka field of 4,403 entries to win €511,710.

Catch up on everything that happened and all of our feature coverage in our 2023 Prague hub. You can also take a look through all of the results (including side events) right here.

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PREVIOUS WINNERS AND RESULTS

2007 – Arnaud Mattern (France) – €708,400
2008 – Salvatore Bonavena (Italy) – €774,000
2009 – Jan Skampa (Czech Republic) – €682,000 (recap)
2010 – Roberto Romanello (UK) – €640,000 (recap)
2011 – Martin Finger (Germany) – €720,000 (recap)
2012 – Ramzi Jelassi (Sweden) – €835,000 (recap)
2013 – Julian Track (Germany) – €725,700 (recap)
2014 – Stephen Graner (USA) – €969,000 (recap)
2015 – Hossein Ensan (Germany) – €754,510 (recap)
2016 – Jasper Meijer van Putten (Netherlands) – €699,300 (recap)
2017 – Kalidou Sow (France) – €675,000 (recap)
2018 – Paul Michaelis (Germany) – €840,000 (recap)
2019 – Mikalai Pobal (Belarus) – €1,005,600 (recap) – Pobal’s second EPT title
2022 – Grzegorz Główny (Poland) – €692,252 (recap)
2022 – Jordan Sacucchi (Canada) – €913,250 (recap)
2023 – Padraig O’Neill (Ireland) – €1,030,000 (recap)

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EVERYTHING ELSE

POKER NEWS LIVE UPDATES
Our live reporting partner is offering hand-by-hand updates from a number of tournaments across the series. 

EPT PRAGUE OFFICIAL SITE
The PokerStars Live official page, with everything you need to know about the tournament series in Prague.

FULL TOURNAMENT SCHEDULE
The full EPT Prague schedule can be viewed here.

DOWNLOAD THE POKERSTARS LIVE APP
All the info you need on your mobile device from the Apple iStore or Google Play for Android.

POKERSTARS BLOG ON TWITTER
Follow us on Twitter.

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