EPT Prague: Main Event player profiles
Only seven are left heading into the final day of the EPT Prague Main Event. Read our player profiles to learn a bit more about the players still in with a chance of winning that €1 million first prize.
Seat 1: Dimitrios Gkatzas, 39, Thessaloniki, Greece – 3,075,000 chips
Dimitrios Gkatzas
After finishing 14th in the EPT Prague Main Event last year, Greece’s Dimitrios Gkatzas has managed to go even further this time around, reaching the first major final of his career.
Having played poker for around 15 years, he says he is mainly a PLO player (pot limit Omaha poker), but seems to find his two-card mojo in this venue. “In hold’em, I usually only play small tournaments, but the Czech Republic has been good to me!” he says.
Just a few months ago, he secured his biggest ever payday, narrowly missing out on the deepest stages of the WSOP-E Main Event in Rozvadov. But he’s already beaten that score here in Prague, and becomes the first Greek player to an EPT final since Symeon Alexandris, also here in Prague, in 2022. It’s been 11 years since the first and only Greek EPT winner: Sotirios Koutoupas, in Deauville in 2014.
“I feel very good and focused,” Gkatzas says as he aims to follow in those footsteps.
Seat 2: Paawan Bansal, 35, Gurugram, India – 2,625,000 chips
Paawan Bansal
Paawan Bansal used to specialize in cash games. But apart from being a poker player, he is also an avid world traveller, so naturally decided to combine both passions by playing live tournaments.
“The EPT is so well run and takes place in some of the nicest cities in the world,” Bansal says. “I love Prague.” He adds that he visited the city on a non-poker trip in 2016, as well as last year to play. But this is by far his most successful trip.
Bansal comes from the most populous country in the world, but he has now become the first Indian ever to make it this far in an EPT Main Event. “Oh wow, I didn’t know that,” Bansal says after learning of his accomplishment. “As if the pay-jumps weren’t enough, now it adds to the pressure,” he laughs.
But he also adds that he’s planning to focus on enjoying himself and “having the best experience possible.” He continues: “You have ups and downs, sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t.”
Bansal used to be a runner, mainly a sprinter, with a 100m PB of 11.4 seconds. He also lists scuba diving among a clutch of active hobbies.
Seat 3: Vitezslav Cech, 35, Prague, Czech Republic – 2,400,000 chips
Vitezslav Cech
Vitezslav Cech started playing poker as a teenager, with his friends from Prague’s Řepy neighborhood. From that group, he is the only player who eventually turned pro – a patient grind leading to this moment, the biggest of the 35-year-old’s career.
It all started when he and his buddies used to skip school classes to play at Full Tilt Poker. Then Cech took a job as a barista in Starbucks on Wenceslas Square, while grinding the $2.50 180-player sit-and-gos at PokerStars on the side.
But it’s always been the big-field MTTs that drew Cech’s attention. Even while he was focusing on playing online tournaments, he used to watch all WSOP and EPT streams, hoping one day he would reach the level to compete in them.
For a few years, Cech used to live just a two-minute walk from the Hilton Prague, and he regularly played at the annual EPT festival. He moved to a different flat several years ago, but his home EPT has stayed on his radar.
Last year, the birth of his first son meant he skipped pretty much all the festival, but he has returned in top form this year. He finished 10th in the PokerStars Open Main Event and has now beaten even that by reaching the EPT Main Event final.
He is only the fourth Czech player to do so here in Prague, following Jan Skampa, Michal Mrakes and Adam Wagner. Mrakes, who finished third in 2017, is one of Cech’s friends and showed up on Saturday to offer his support.
Seat 4: Bora Kurtulus, 54, Antalya, Turkey – 12,325,000 chips
Bora Kurtulus
“I smoke a lot, can we go outside?” was the first thing Bora Kurtulus said when approached for a quick interview ahead of the final table. The 54-year-old from Antalya spends most of the EPT breaks in front of the Hilton Hotel entrance.
“I’m old and tired,” Kurtulus says, listing the disadvantages he has against the EPT field. His reported live cashes, earned mostly in Cyprus, totalled less than $60,000 before he took EPT Prague by storm.
He claims that he typically plays events that quickly turn into an all-in bonanza, but says this stage suits him better, emphasizing that he really likes the EPT structure.
“You can stay calm, play your game, be patient,” he says. “You can even make a big bluff as it’s very deep.”
Kurtulus plays one or two EPT Main Events every year, but this is his first ever cash. It’s been a remarkable run, with Kurtulus now becoming only the seventh Turkish player to reach an EPT Main Event final. None has ever won one. The best result is Muhtar Taysi’s third-place finish at EPT Sochi in 2021.
“It’s stressful,” Kurtulus admits, referencing the payouts. “But it’s also been a lot of fun.”
The tournament chip leader says that he treats poker only as a hobby. As a civil engineer from Antalya, he is used to traveling to many countries. In recent years, he’s mostly worked on construction projects in Africa, specifically in Nigeria.
Seat 5: Conor O’Driscoll, 36, Ireland – Lives in London, UK – 1,225,000 chips
Conor O’Driscoll
A familiar face to Twitch poker fans, Irishman Conor O’Driscoll is a regular streamer contesting tournaments and cash games, and is a member of the same online poker communities as PokerStars Ambassadors Spraggy and Lex Veldhuis.
A fan of a bankroll challenge, he is also, as of last year, a WCOOP champion, making two final tables in the same event on the same night — and beating a field of more than 6,000 to land a title. (He sat alongside Spraggy at one of those FTs).
Though he has made numerous deep runs in huge tournaments in the UK, Ireland and further afield, including a UKIPT Main Event final table, this EPT Prague run marks a significant step forward. He’ll record the biggest cash of his career whatever happens on Sunday.
It’s taken some getting used to.
“I’m not used to the spotlight,” he says. “I prefer my tiny camera at home.”
Seat 6: Matan Krakow, 44, Tel Aviv, Israel – 9,700,000 chips
Matan Krakow
“My wife always knows that I will be gone in December,” says Matan Krakow, who has been a regular at EPT Prague for years. Krakow loves the Czech capital, and while he claimed to have had “no significant results yet,” this is actually his third EPT Main Event cash. He’s previously made the money here in Prague and once in Malta.
Krakow works as a poker manager for an online poker site, so he knows the industry from the other side as well. Playing on the biggest stage for a million euros, however, is a unique experience. “I respect the pay-jumps, but I don’t want to be stressed about it,” Krakow says “I want to stay relaxed.”
The 44-year-old has a background in journalism, and helped co-write Eli Elezra’s autobiography Pulling the Trigger before he started seriously competing in poker himself. Now he has the chance to become only the second EPT Main Event champion from Israel, matching the achievement of Uri Gilboa who won in Sochi in 2019.
Seat 7: Traian Stanciu, 30, Bucarest, Romania – 5,325,000 chips
Traian Stanciu
From Rozvadov to Cyprus, via Paris, Sanremo and Campione, Traian Stanciu has been travelling across Europe as a poker player for several years.
“I’ve been playing for nine years, but in recent years, we could say poker has become my job,” he says.
For all that, this final table at EPT Prague marks not only his first deep run in an EPT Main Event, but also his best live career performance and his biggest cash to date. He says: “Obviously, I’m very happy, especially since I’ve been mentally preparing for this moment for a month!”
The 30-year-old from Bucharest starts the final day with a healthy stack and will be supported by a whole group of Romanian players, including PSO Campione winner Adrian-Sorel State. But his real lucky charm is waiting further away, in Romania: his six-month-old daughter.
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