Two top talents from either side of the Atlantic went head to head for the EPT Barcelona title tonight at the conclusion of a dramatic day in Catalonia and a fitting celebration of 20 years of the European Poker Tour.

The official champion of the 143rd EPT Main Event is Stephen Song, a 29-year-old pro from Greenwich, Connecticut, USA, who downed Britain’s Andrew Hulme heads-up after the pair agreed a deal. Song is a previous GPI Player of the Year and has won major titles aplenty, but was sitting at his first EPT final table after making a regular trip to Barcelona.

“This stop is just amazing,” Song said, describing how he watched poker from a very young age on TV before eventually finding his way to the tables. “It’s been unreal. I’ve been a huge poker fanboy since I was a little kid. This is the pinnacle. I always said that winning an EPT would be the sickest one.”

Song admitted got the blessing of the dealer in several crucial spots, labelling himself the “river man”, but he is an exceptional talent. This should surprise nobody, even though Hulme too had a terrific tournament here in Barcelona this week.

By the point the pair shook hands on the chop, two more Americans, plus a Romanian and a Croatian had departed from a turbulent final table, including the Oklahoma lawyer Rania Nasreddine, who was appearing at a second consecutive EPT final.

Having finished third in Monte Carlo in May, Nasreddine had to make do with fourth this time, behind Marius-Catalin Pertea (third) and the two heads-up combatants. But this was a final in which all players had taken their turn in the limelight, with Song and Hulme in particular seeing their stacks swing wildly.

Song was leader at the start of the day, but dipped so severely that he was on the brink of elimination on multiple occasions. Hulme, who started the day as one of the two shortest stacks, was also under threat early on, but managed to find a crucial double and blaze into an enormous chip lead.

But these experienced campaigners, schooled on the online tables, found their spots perfectly to stay battling to the end. The conclusion only came after the pair had guaranteed more than €1.1 million each, with the final accounting reading €1,290,386 for Song and €1,165,614 for Hulme.

On the very last hand, Song hit a straight with his A♣ 7♥ to beat Hulme’s pocket eights. That came after Hulme had somehow wriggled away from pocket queens after Song had flopped trips with 6♠ 5♥ . It wasn’t to be for Hulme, but this was a significant career high for him as well.

TOURNAMENT ACTION

With 1,975 entries, this was the fourth-largest EPT Main Event in history, with €9,578,750 in the prize pool. After six days, only six players were left for this final stretch.

The penultimate day of action lasted close to midnight, largely the result of a seven-handed slowdown. Players knew that only six would make it through into the final day and nobody wanted to be the last one to miss out. Eventually, Alexandre Fournier took the fall in seventh to set the final table, with Stephen Song leading Marius-Catalin Pertea by a whisker.

The final days stacks were as follows:

Stephen Song, USA, 15,150,000
Marius-Catalin Pertea, Romania, 14,575,000
David Coleman, USA, 10,425,000
Rania Nasreddine, USA, 8,300,000
Andrew Hulme, UK, 5,525,000
Boris Kuzmanovic, Croatia, 5,275,000

On another day, the opening couple of hours might have resulted in at least two or three eliminations. But these six were seemingly reluctant to end their sit in. Hulme began his steady surge up the counts with an early double through Rania Nasreddine, while Stephen Song tumbled out of the chip lead. Boris Kuzmanovic doubled through Song with kings against nines, but then Hulme and Nasreddine both beat Kuzmanovic in sizeable pots, eventually landing Kuzmanovic on the rail.

Kuzmanovic mis-timed a three-bet jam, holding Q♠ J♠ . Nasreddine, who had opened the button, had the goods. Her A♦ K♣ stayed best and halted Kuzmanovic’s tournament in sixth. He won €306,900, but Croatia’s wait for its first champion continued.

With chips continuing to head to Hulme, Nasreddine and Pertea, Song found himself under threat twice in quick succession. But he managed to get his tournament back on the right track with back-to-back double-ups, both times through Pertea. On the first,K♦ 10♦ beat K♥ 2♦ , followed by pocket fives besting A♥ Q♥ . Pertea actually hit both his ace and queen, but by that point Song had a set.

With the tournament now growing remarkably short-stacked, Hulme was able to apply relentless pressure on every opponent. David Coleman had the best position on Hulme, to the Brit’s direct left, but he found himself ensnared in a dastardly trap to bust next.

Action folded to Hulme in the small blind and he peeked down at pocket queens. He raised it to 2.5BBs and Coleman, in the big blind, called with J♣ 9♠ . The flop may have looked good for Coleman, but it was actually terrible. It came J♠ 3♠ 3♣ , but Coleman’s top pair was second best.

Hulme bet small. Coleman called. Then after the 2♦ turn, Hulme bet big. Coleman called again. The A♠ completed the board and now Hulme moved all-in, with Coleman’s the effective stack. Coleman spent a while in the tank but then called it off, learning the bad news.

Coleman headed out in fifth pocketing €398,950. The rest were now guaranteed at least half a million dollars.

Hulme now had an enormous lead, which meant his opponents were by definition on the back foot. Song got lucky to spike an ace on the river to survive and double through Hulme (Hulme’s K♦ J♥ had taken a lead against Song’s A♣ K♥ on a jack high flop), but he then got the best hand to hold up when his pocket nines stayed good against Hulme’s Q♠ 10♣ in a blind-vs.-blind encounter.

When Song doubled yet again, this time through Pertea in a gross spot, he was back in the chip lead and the Romanian had only seven big blinds left. It really was pretty grim for Pertea. Song got it all in with A♥ 9♠ on a flop of J♥ 7♥ 5♥ . He had to hit though, because Pertea had A♦ A♠ .

Song was running very well, however. Although the turn was the 7♣ , the 8♥ river was massive.

Pertea now only really had one move, and he chipped up a little thanks to a couple of blind steals. When he did so again, sitting in the small blind with 9♥ 8♠ , he found Nasreddine in the big blind with A♦ K♠ . Nasreddine had a short stack of her own but this was a mandatory call. In trademark fashion, she buried her head in her hands and couldn’t watch as the dealer put out five cards.

The first four were relatively harmless to Nasreddine. But the 9♥ river hit Pertea and left Nasreddine with only two big blinds.

The end came on the very next hand. Nasreddine’s A♠ 3♠ lost to Hulme’s A♥ 8♣ , and her incredible back-to-back EPT adventure was over — at least until next time. Nadreddine banked €518,600 for her performance here, which she added to the €442,900 she won in Monte Carlo in May.

When she appeared on Who Wants to be a Millionaire? in the U.S. in 2007, she won only $25,000. But having now found the EPT, she has comfortably cleared the $1 million mark. She has also left an indelible mark on this tour. These two consecutive final tables is one of the most exceptional feats of the modern era — and she is promising to return to Cyprus this autumn.

Pertea now had enough to sniff the chance of a potential challenged again, but Hulme snuffed it out pretty quickly. They got their chips in in a flip: Hulme’s A♣ 6♦ against Pertea’s pocket fives. The dealer left it until the river before putting a six out there. That meant Pertea perished in third, picking up a career high €674,150.

It was Hulme vs. Song for the title and, with comparatively even stack sizes, they very hastily agreed an ICM deal. Song’s stack of 33.55 million chips guaranteed him €1,233,586 in the deal. Hulme’s 25.635 million chips were worth €1,165,614. There was €56,800 on the side, plus the trophy and the prestige.

After a quick handshake, on they went — and Song was quickly on top. He already had a decent chip lead when he put in a delicious bluff on a board of Q♥ 8♥ 5♣ 7♥ 4♦ , sitting with only 9♠ 5♠ . Hulme had K♣ Q♣ but folded his top pair when Song jammed the river.

They went on a tournament break, after which they returned with Hulme’s 28 big blinds trailing Song’s 69.

After this point, it was plain sailing for Song. He won a massive pot after flopping trip fives. Hulme made an excellent fold of pocket queens to Song’s river jam. And then the first time all the chips went in with the prospect of a champion being decided, the dealer had one more favour for the brilliant American.

Hulme had pocket eights and Song had A♣ 7♥ . All the money was in pre-flop and the first three cards off the deck were 5♦ 3♦ 6♦ . Song’s rail switched their shout from that of “Ace!” to “Four!” and they received instant gratification.

The 4♠ came on the turn, greeted by throaty roars. Hulme still had outs — a seven would do it for him — but the 9♦ river was a blank. It meant Song took it down: a bracelet winner, a WPT Prime winner, a GPI Player of the Year and now an EPT champion too.

Song’s triumph brought the curtain down on another spectacular EPT festival, on which the tour marked its 20th anniversary. According to official figures, total prize pools from the week hit €53,021,226.28. Players registered a total of 25,706 times, including re-entries, with 4,719 unique players walking through the doors.

We now enter the EPT’s third decade — and let’s look forward to that in Cyprus next month.

RESULTS

EPT Barcelona — €5,300 Main Event
Dates: Sept 1-8, 2024
Entries: 1,975 (inc. 506 re-entries)
Prize pool: €9,578,750

FULL EPT BARCELONA FESTIVAL RESULTS
Catch up on all the winners from across the festival

8 CRUCIAL FINAL TABLE HANDS THAT LED STEPHEN SONG TO VICTORY

On Sunday, September 8, 2024, Stephen Song took down the European Poker Tour (EPT) Barcelona Main Event for €1,290,386.

Here are the eight most crucial hands that led Song to victory.

Stephen Song’s EPT Barcelona performance will go down as one of the most entertaining in recent memory. The American crusher put on a stack-building clinic throughout Day 6, bagging the chip-lead overnight despite ever risking much. 

Then, during today’s six-handed final, he not only showed how you keep your composure and stay smiling when things go against you but also how to win with grace when you get lucky again and again. And again.

A BAD START

Six players remaining
Level 34 : Blinds 150,000/300,000, 300,000 ante

Song certainly had lady luck on his side at several points throughout the final table (we’ll get to those hands in a moment), but his day started terribly, going from the top of the counts to the bottom.

He doubled up Boris Kuzmanovic – who was hoping to become Croatia’s first EPT champ – after Kuzmanovic jammed for the second consecutive hand over his open with pocket nines. Turned out he had the goods with pocket kings and Song found no help. 

Half Song’s stack was gone and from there his chips dwindled further. Not as far as Kuzmanovic’s, though – he departed in sixth. 

TWO DOUBLES IN QUICK SUCCESSION

Five players remaining
Level 35 : Blinds 200,000/400,000, 400,000 ante

Both Romania’s Marius-Catalin Pertea and the UK’s Andrew Hulme had the best of it in the early stages, amassing dominating chip stacks. Hulme especially enjoyed an incredible first couple of levels, doubling very early on and eventually going from the short stack to chip lead.

Song’s trajectory was going in the opposite direction and when he slipped down to five big blinds he desperately needed to find some spots to double. The first came when he jammed from the small blind with K♦ 10♦ and was called by Pertea in the big with a dominated K♥ 2♦ . The board ran out 3♦ 3♠ 4♦ A♠ Q♦ and Pertea whiffed his chop outs as Song rivered a flush.

The two players clashed again shortly after. Song made it 2.3 million in the cutoff with 5♠ 5♥ , leaving himself 150,000 behind, but called off when Pertea three-bet from the button with A♥ Q♥ . Song flopped a set on the 7♣ 9♥ 5♦ flop and the A♣ Q♠ turn and river couldn’t beat it. 

With that, Song moved up to 10.5 million and had some breathing room once more.

THE FIRST LIFE-SAVING RIVER

Five players remaining
Level 35 : Blinds 200,000/400,000, 400,000 ante

Song picked up A♣ K♥ under the gun and opened off a 15-big-blind stack, and it folded to Hulme in the big blind with K♦ J♥ . “I don’t think Hulme wants to turn this into a bluff,” said Sam Grafton in the commentary booth. “It’s nice to call and see three.”

Those three – 2♣ J♣ 5♥ – saw Hulme take a big lead and Song continued for one big blind when checked to. Ace-king could often be the best hand in this spot, and he blocked the back-door flush draw.

Over to Hulme, he raised to 1.6 million and Grafton praised the bet size, then explained why he went big. If Hulme had a flush draw, he’d want to bet enough to hint that he was pot-committed, potentially preventing Song from getting sticky. 

Looking at it from Song’s POV, Grafton said: “There’s a possibility [Song] might shove here to get called by, let’s say 6♣ 4♣ . You’d get the job done against six-three. But if you call, the pot becomes very bloated. The sizing actually makes it very hard to play the ace-king.”

Song used three time bank cards before announcing he was all in, which Hulme snap-called. In terms of the actual hands, Grafton suggested it was one of the very few misssteps Song has made throughout this Main Event. But the hand wasn’t over.

The 3♦ turn doubled Song’s outs, but it was one of those initial four aces that saved him on the river. The A♥ gave Song the winner and the 13.1 million slid the American’s way. “You’ve got to feel for Hulme, who played the hand perfectly,” Grafton sympathised. 

This hand brought Song into second, just behind Hulme.

THE SECOND LIFE-SAVING RIVER

Four players remaining
Level 36 : Blinds 250,000/500,000, 500,000 ante

After David Coleman exited in fifth, Song found another double up (and another big river). 

Song completed from the small blind with A♥ 9♠ and Pertea peeled A♠ A♦ in the big. The Romanian made it 1.5 million to go and Song went nowhere with his ace. 

The J♥ 7♥ 5♥ flop kept Pertea in front but gave Song a ton of outs to the nut flush. “[Pertea] should be careful here because Song’s hands are suited very often,” said Grafton. Pertea continued for 3 million when checked to.

Grafton pointed out that as the sizing lowers the stack-to-pot ratio. Song might be tempted to shove. He did exactly that, using a time bank before moving all in for 12.75 million. Pertea called quickly. 

The 7♣ hit the turn. Then the 8♥ completed Song’s flush on the river. The American couldn’t believe it, and nor could Pertea, who could only shake his head in disbelief. 

“Pertea got it in really good,” said Grafton. “Really tough for the amateur, who would have gone three-handed with the commanding chip lead.”

Instead, Song took the chip lead with close to 60 bigs, while Pertea was down to 4.2 million (8 big blinds). 

Monte Carlo finalist Rania Nasreddine’s incredible back-to-back Main Event run ended in fourth, and Pertea departed in third, leaving Song and Hulme heads up.

THE BIGGEST BLUFF

Two players remaining
Level 36 : Blinds 250,000/500,000, 500,000 ante

You don’t become as successful as Stephen Song just by catching a few lucky river cards, as Song demonstrated in the first notable hand of heads up.

After the two made a deal, Song opened to 1.25 million with 9♠ 5♠ and Hulme raised to 4 million with K♣ Q♣ . “It’s kind of annoying to raise-fold a suited hand,” said Grafton, and Song agreed as he stuck around.

The flop came Q♥ 8♥ 5♣ giving Hulme top pair and Song bottom pair. “It’s a dynamic flop,” Grafton continued. “But you’d think you’d have heard from ace-queen.”

Hulme made it 2.8 million – around one-third pot – and Song called to bring the 7♥ turn. A third heart can’t have been pleasant for Hulme, who opted to check. Song pounced on the opportunity to take it down and bet 3.5 million, which Hulme called. 

The 4♦ river completed the board and when Hulme checked again Song surely felt he only had one way to win. “This runout is very unfavourable to jacks and tens and nines… and king-queen,” said Grafton. “[Song] would probably rather have a heart in his hand.”

But Song went for it, shoving for just under a pot-size bet into the 21 million chip pot. Grafton said Hulme’s hand was nothing but a bluff-catcher at this stage as he doesn’t beat any hands Song would play this way for value. 

If he called, he’d all but win it. But Hulme laid it down and Song’s aggression paid off, giving him a more than 2:1 chip lead.

GREAT FOLD BY HULME

Two players remaining
Level 37 : Blinds 300,000/600,000, 600,000 ante

At this stage, it really did feel like Song was destined to win. Andrew Hulme was playing excellent poker, just as he had for seven straight days, but Song seemed unstoppable.

When Hulme picked up Q♠ Q♥ and Song called an open with 6♠ 5♥ , the dealer spread a 10♥ 5♣ 5♦ flop to give Song trips. He checked and Hulme continued for 600,000 (one big blind) which Song bumped up to 1.8 million. Hulme called.

“I don’t think he expects Hulme to have a hand as strong as queens,” said Maria Ho in the booth, so Song played his hand in a way that might encourage weaker hands to stick around. He fired 4 million on the 4♣ turn and Hulme called once again.

The K♥ river completed the board and Song used a time bank before shoving. “This isn’t an easy fold by any means,” said Ho, but it’s one Hulme made after using all his time banks. 

“That might look stupid,” said Hulme.

“Probably not,” Song replied. 

“I’m due something,” Hulme continued.

“You’re definitely due, I’ve had pretty good hands,” said Song.

THE FINAL HAND

Two players remaining
Level 37 : Blinds 300,000/600,000, 600,000 ante

The final hand played itself. Hulme was down to eight big blinds and found 8♥ 8♦ to call after Song set him all in with A♣ 7♥ . The 5♦ 3♦ 6♣ flop doubled Song’s immediate outs, and he hit one instantly on the 4♠ turn, making his straight.

Only a seven could save Hulme, but he couldn’t make a bigger straight on the 9♦ river.

Congratulations to Stephen Song, your EPT Barcelona champion.

POST-BARCELONA PODCAST

What happened on and off the felt at EPT Barcelona?

James and Joe recap the European Poker Tour’s 20th-anniversary celebrations with two-time Super High Roller winner Kayhan Mokri. And, with the 2024 World Championship of Online Poker now running on PokerStars, they get the early headlines and series stats from WCOOP Correspondent Howard Swains.

Plus, Miles Miller from the USA picks ‘Money Heist’ as his specialist subject in ‘Superfan vs Stapes’.

EPT BARCELONA MAIN EVENT FINAL TABLE PLAYER PROFILES

After six gruelling days, the EPT Barcelona has reached its final table, with six players due to return on Sunday to play to a champion. Here’s some more information about the players still in with a chance of landing the €1.512 million first prize.

SEAT 1: ANDREW HULME, NOTTINGHAM, UK, 36 – 5,525,000 CHIPS

Before he became established as one of UK poker’s brightest talents, Andrew Hulme was best known in his home country as a hugely successful contestant on the popular television words and numbers show Countdown. Hulme first appeared as an 11 year old, before returning as an adult to claim eight consecutive daily victories, the most the show allows, and the distinction of being a so-called “octochamp”.

Countdown does not pay cash prizes, but poker thankfully appeared in Hulme’s life to take care of that side of things. He progressed through the ranks as both an online and live player, featuring prominently at the PokerStars tables as “stato_1”, while also playing regularly on the EPT and beyond. He has hundreds of major tournament scores online and has also racked up more than $2.2 million in live tournament results, including a $345K payday at the World Series of Poker Main Event in 2023. This EPT Barcelona result is already his best on this tour, bettering a 12th-place finish in Prague in 2016.

Hulme is a graduate of Warwick University, a hotbed of poker talent in the UK, and the alma mater of previous EPT champions Rupert Elder and Zimnan Ziyard. He is now based in Nottingham, near to the Dusk Till Dawn poker club, which has similarly fostered many of the UK’s best players.

EAT 2: DAVID COLEMAN, 31, FROM NEW JERSEY, LIVES IN LAS VEGAS – 10,425,000 CHIPS

David Coleman has a strong online background. Like many, he picked up poker in high school and then increased his volume in college. After graduating in finance and economics, he turned poker pro.

While also an established force on the live scene, the 31-year-old entered 2024 without a single outright live tournament win on his resume. By the end of January, however, he had nabbed four first places and now boasts six, including a $730,300 top prize from a $25,000 event at Wynn Las Vegas.

Originally from New Jersey, Coleman moved to Vegas last year and regularly competes in high buy-in tournaments held in the city. That’s where he also finished third in the NAPT Main Event last November. He’s already looking forward to returning to the same event in the fall.

In the meantime, Coleman has a shot at winning the EPT title on what is only his second attempt (he debuted on the tour at EPT Paris 2024).

“I love it here, I’ll definitely be back,” Coleman said. “PokerStars does a great job and I’m excited about the event.”

When away from the tables, Coleman says he likes to stay active, mentioning hiking, working out, and playing pickleball and frisbee golf.

SEAT 3: STEPHEN SONG, 29, GREENWICH, CT, USA – 15,150,000 CHIPS

One of the most accomplished American players on the circuit, Stephen Song is making one of his regular overseas trips to Barcelona and is enjoying his deepest Main Event run to date.

Song already has $6.5 million in documented live tournament earnings, including one WSOP bracelet and a victory in a WPT Prime event. He’s the most successful tournament player from his home state of Connecticut, a fact that did not go unnoticed by reporters at the Stamford Advocate newspaper, which profiled Song in 2023.

“Life’s pretty good,” Song told the newspaper, describing how he learned poker from watching TV and playing with his dad. The Song family first tuned into the WSOP in 2006, when former PokerStars Team Pro Joe Hachem took down the Main Event. Song went on to play with friends at high school.

Song turned pro during his first semester at college, and has gradually proved to his initially sceptical parents that he made the right decision. They’ve been present on the rail for his biggest successes to date — but the EPT Barcelona final could outstrip anything he’s managed before. He won $712K for the WPT Prime victory, which is less than half the first prize for the tournament he’s now playing.

Song was named GPI Player of the Year for 2022, the year of that WPT win. But his best result outside of North America came here in Barcelona in 2019, when he took down a €2K side event for €185K.

SEAT 4: MARIUS PERTEA, 44, BUZAU, ROMANIA – 14,575,000 CHIPS

Seven years ago, Marius Pertea fell just short of reaching the final table in Monte Carlo; he bowed out in 11th place after losing with king-jack to Davidi Kitai’s queen-jack.

We haven’t seen too much of Pertea thereafter. He wasn’t around for a few years in the post-Covid seasons, but has now returned to the big stage and done so in style.

Pertea won a seat to the EPT Barcelona 2024 Main Event online at PokerStars. And after busting that first bullet, he opted to re-enter paying the full buy-in. It turned out to be a fantastic decision as he’s now locked up the first six-figure prize of his career.

The 44-year-old construction industry entrepreneur has called poker his hobby for the past 12 or 13 years. He plays mostly home games, but when he decides to travel for poker, it’s almost exclusively to EPTs. Now he has a chance of making his mark on the tour should he become Romania’s second EPT champion after Razvan Belea.

SEAT 5: RANIA NASREDDINE, 44, TULSA, OKLAHOMA – 8,300,000 CHIPS

Rania Nasreddine has pulled off an incredible feat at EPT Barcelona, making back-to-back Main Event final tables. The 44-year-old finished third for €442,900 in Monte Carlo earlier this year, by far the biggest score of her poker career. But she could top it this week.

Nasreddine, a lawyer from Tulsa, Oklahoma, already had plenty of live poker experience before her maiden EPT final. Still, she downplayed her talent. “I’m not that good,” she said at the time. “I’m outkicking my coverage, as we say in America.”

But here she is, once again playing on an enormous stage with another six-figure score guaranteed, so don’t let her modesty fool you. Throughout the Barcelona Main Event, she’s shown not only how you build chip-leading stack, but how you recover when you’re down and almost out. At one point sitting with just seven big blinds, Nasreddine charged back and entered the penultimate day with the biggest stack.

Although she slipped again, she recovered to knock out Fabiano Kovalski in ninth, setting the official final table, and securing her place among the elite once more.

SEAT 6: BORIS KUZMANOVIC, 37, ZAGREB, CROATIA – 5,275,000 CHIPS

You’d never guess it from his cool, calm demeanour, but Boris Kuzmanovic is on the verge of making history. If he takes down the EPT Barcelona Main Event he’ll become the first Croatian champion in the tour’s history.

“It has crossed my mind,” he says, smiling. “I’m usually very calm and I don’t expect much but now I’m so close and the chances are real.”

Kuzmanovic, a 37-year-old computer consultant from Zagreb, used to play online cash games seriously around a decade ago. These days, however, he cherry-picks tournaments and only plays around 15 events a year. He’s played plenty under the PokerStars banner in that time and has more than half a million in live cashes. “I’ve had deep runs but nothing this big,” he says.

This will be his biggest cash wherever he finishes, but 2024 has already been his best year yet. At the World Series of Poker (WSOP) in July, he finished eighth in a $3,000 buy-in event for $133,479.

POWER PATH EXPERT CLOSE TO MAIN EVENT FINAL

Hundreds of players have won incredible poker experiences since Power Path launched in June 2023, but a select few have truly excelled, stacking up Passes and travelling the world for free playing the game they love.

Canada’s Alexandre Fournier is one of them. The 33-year-old from Montreal is among the promotion’s top 20 players in the world, winning seven Silver Passes worth $2,500 a piece, and all of them have come from the $11 Step 3 tournaments.

“I play all of the $11’s,” Fournier says. “I think Power Path is awesome. It’s always good to have a few Silver Passes stored.”

He used one of them earlier this trip to play the Estrellas Poker Tour (ESPT) Main Event, but it was a €27 satellite that kickstarted his journey towards the €5,300 buy-in EPT Barcelona Main Event. From there he won a seat in a €530 qualifier and finished in the top spots to win a package.

Now, after six of days of play, he’s on the verge of making the final table with a guaranteed six-figure score coming his way. He’s guaranteed to fly home with a career-best score, topping the C$70,800 (~$54,193) he won in a live event near his home in 2020.

“It’s been amazing,” he says when asked about his Main Event run. “Every morning telling my girlfriend it’s Day 6, Day 7… having that kind of ritual daily. It’s been surreal, this event.”

Fournier began taking the game seriously in 2014 and a year later finished third in the iconic Sunday Million. He says the result went to his head. “I thought I was the best player in the world and things started to go south.”

With his bankroll depleting, Fournier realised he needed to work harder and implement the study tools that had emerged throughout his poker career.  “You need to now or you’re going to get run over,” he says.

So in 2019, he took his study game to another level and although he’s still playing relatively low stakes online, he’s proud of his consistency, not just in poker but in his everyday grind. “I have a very strict routine because if you have a loosey-goosey schedule in poker you’re going to get screwed,” he says. “I’m trying to be as consistent as I can, work on myself daily, and learn something about a new spot every day.”

At the time of writing, Fournier is down to the final 10 and the magnitude of this Barcelona run isn’t lost on him. But he’s keeping his cool and not thinking about the huge money jumps at stake. “It’s not that I don’t care,” he says. “But it goes how it goes. You play your spots the best you can.”

Whatever happens, we’re sure he’ll have many more opportunities in the future thanks to his Power Path prowess.

SERIAL QUALIFIER ESTRADA LANDS FIRST SPADIE

Soraya Estrada, one of the most reliable online satellite players in poker today, tonight landed her first outright victory in a live tournament, taking down the €550 Women’s Event for €11,350.

Estrada rode her luck in the late stages to come back from a short stack and beat Olga Iermolcheva (third) and Joycelyn Lam (second), earning the first spade trophy not of her career. Not only that, she became the first Spanish player to win a title here in Barcelona this year.

Born in Majorca, but now based in Andorra so she can play online, Estrada qualifies for just about everything, including seemingly every Main Event on the EPT. She played the big tournaments here in Barcelona, without success this time, but that freed her up for the run at the title in the Women’s Event.

Estrada took up poker aged 18 and has gradually progressed through the stakes. She was a teacher before the Covid pandemic, but started playing more poker during the lockdowns and the game is now her main focus.

“I love qualifiers,” she said during an interview at EPT Monte Carlo, earlier in the year. “I try to play all the qualifiers. I try to come to all the EPTs and the regional Spanish tours. It helps when you qualify for low money. You can come and enjoy the hotels, the whole experience. We always try to qualify for all the events, even the regional ones.”

In this case “we” is Estrada and her poker-pro boyfriend Gerard Carbó, another online qualifying machine. Carbo won a Platinum Pass to the PSPC in January 2023 after a gruelling heads-up tournament, requiring him to win eight heads-up matches in succession. His success prompted Estrada to redouble her efforts to join him in the PSPC field and she played the $109 qualifier “every day”.

It seemed like it wasn’t to be, however, until the PokerStars liaison team swooped to her rescue. They awarded Estrada’s persistence with the gift of her own Platinum Pass — although getting it to her wasn’t quite as straightforward as it might have been.

“I had breakfast with Gerard, and then I went to the beach with my friends,” Estrada recalled. “I didn’t know that this day I was playing. They were trying to find me everywhere. I only got in during level 6. I was in the swimming pool by myself. They couldn’t find me.”

She continued: “I had a dream to play that. I wanted to play it so much, and I tried so hard. But finally I couldn’t. I was so unhappy. But they had this surprise for me. It was an amazing experience. I’m grateful with all my heart.”

Estrada cashed in 144th place for $35,100, which remains the second largest win of her career.

For someone so keen on qualification tournaments, the PokerStars Power Path has obviously been a real boon for Estrada. In addition to three full EPT packages, two of which she used in Monte Carlo and Barcelona, with another ready for Cyprus, she has won umpteen Silver Passes.

Carbo has the same fondness for satellites and watched Estrada win the event in Barcelona while wearing his PokerStars Power Path T-shirt. Carbo cashed the EPT Main Event in both Cyprus last year and Monte Carlo this time, in 11th and 28th place, respectively, and was also in the money in the Estrellas event last week.

But neither had an outright victory until today. Estrada is now off the mark, and seemingly certain to be back for more.

HAS THE TIME COME FOR CHINA, INDIA OR CROATIA?

You might think we’d seen it all after 20 years of the European Poker Tour (EPT), but there are still some relatively surprising achievements yet to be fulfilled.

For instance, the two most populous counties in the world, India and China, have never provided an EPT Main Event champion. It’s something that could change this week in Barcelona.

The final 16 players here in this tournament come from 10 different countries. It’s not uncommon to see such a cosmopolitan field make-up, particularly in tournament with such global appeal as EPT Barcelona. But it definitely is unusual to see both China and India represented at this stage.

Jianwei Lin could become the first Chinese to win, bettering his countrymen Honglin Jiang and Wei Huang who came second to Nicolas Dumont in Monte Carlo in 2018 (Jiang) and runner-up to Manig Loeser in the same location in 2019 (Huang). Meanwhile, if Sriharsha Doddapaneni is even able to make it to the last eight, he will have trodden where no Indian player has trodden before.

It’s true: there’s never been an Indian at an EPT final table.

Boris Kuzmanovic is another potential history maker. No Croatian has ever won an EPT Main Event, with Zdravko Duvnjak and Andrija Martic reaching a country-high of seventh place, in Prague 2013 and Sanremo 2014, respectively. A deeper run for Kuzmanovic would further consolidate his standing as one of Croatia’s best. He’s currently third on the Croatia money list, with a finish of third or better in this event moving him up one spot.

Two Americans lead the way heading into the final day, which should be no surprise to seasoned EPT watchers. There have been 16 Americans who have lifted an EPT title. But this next fact may indeed surprise you: it’s been the best part of a decade since the famous trophy headed to the United States. The last time was Kevin Schulze’s victory at the PCA in January 2015.

British players, meanwhile, have been the most consistent performers. Nineteen EPT titles have gone to Brits, most recently Barny Boatman’s famous triumph in Paris, earlier this year. There are three Brits in the last 16 this time: Harry Lodge, Andrew Hulme and Daniel Myers.

Once again, Spanish players have been unable to give their home supporters reason to cheer. The last home hope Pablo Beltran perished in 23rd, meaning Spain continues to seek its second EPT champion. It’s still only Adrian Mateos who has won a title for Spain, back in 2015.

Cards are now in the air for the penultimate day of the tournament. It’s time to see whether any of these new landmarks can be hit.

TWO TEAM PROS MAKE MYSTERY FINAL

Mystery Bounty events are always exciting, but the €3,000 EPT Mystery Bounty has been particularly thrilling for Team PokerStars. 

Not one but two red spades reached the final table out of the 1,113 entries: Fintan “easywithaces” Hand, who was seeking his second live poker title after his UKIPT Edinburgh win in 2023, and best-selling author Maria Konnikova, also looking for a second live trophy after her student-to-master victory in the Bahamas back in 2018. 

Hand made it to third place, coming up short against Jacob Stone, a British player who had the big stack for most of the day, and Brazil’s Murilo Milhomem, who went on a late surge to claim the title. Milhomen turned the tables in the three-handed encounter, eliminating Hand and then downing Stone too.

All three landed the biggest scores of their careers. Including bounties, Hand banked €160,350, Stone won €260,700 and Milhomen picked up €332,658.

Sadly, by that point, we had already lost Maria Konnikova along the way. Here’s a recap of what’s happened on the final table.

Stone had a healthy lead heading into the final table and the Brit, who scooped a €50,000 bounty prize on Day 2, never took his foot off the gas. When eight were left he had almost five times the stack of his nearest competitor. 

But before that, we lost Alexander Ivarsson in ninth. Both of Ivarsson’s biggest cashes came in Barcelona in 2019; a win in the €2,200 High Roller in 2019 for just under €500K, and a 10th-place finish in the Main Event for €101K. The talented Swede added his third largest today, falling in ninth for €99,700 (including bounties) when his trip aces couldn’t beat Stone’s aces full. 

There aren’t many €3K tournaments where you can finish eighth and take home €144,600, but after pulling one of the two €100K bounties yesterday, Iceland’s Arni Gunnarsson did exactly that. His hot streak ended when his K♠ Q♠ couldn’t beat Stone’s pocket tens after a pre-flop all-in. 

Stone was one card away from busting Hand next, setting him all in from the small blind with 9♥ 2♣ only for Hand to wake up with A♦ Q♣ in the big. The board ran out K♠ 8♦ 2♦ 9♦ 10♦ and Hand rivered a flush to double, much to the delight of his ever-growing rail.

Instead, it was Brazilian crusher Kelvin Kerber who departed in seventh. Kerber — a top WCOOP League pick who won three SCOOP titles earlier this year – was short and his pocket sixes couldn’t hold against Hand’s king-ten off. He collected €65,200 including bounties.

Another crusher Julien Sitbon then lost a flip against his fellow Frenchman Fabrice Maltez and desperately needed a double. He moved 375K in the middle leaving 25K behind and was called blind by Murilo Milhomem, who had yet to peek at his cards. The flop fell 3♦ A♦ 7♣ and Sitbon tossed in his final chip, flipping K♦ 10♣ . Milhomem had the best of it with 7♠ 5♦ and Sitbon couldn’t find help on the 4♠ turn or Q♥ river. With bounties, he left with €79,250.

That left Konnikova as the short stack and she wasted no time trying to change that. She jammed for just over a million chips in the hijack with A♠ 3♥ and was called by Maltez in the big with a dominating A♦ J♥ . It all looked rosy for Konnikova, however, when the turn of the A♣ K♠ 6♥ 3♦ gave her two pair, only for the J♣ to fall next. “Dirty river,” she said, smiling, as she left to collect €84,800 plus €43,000 in bounties.

THE WCOOP LEAGUE 2024 DRAFT

We’ll let you in on a secret. On Monday, September 2, when the PokerStars EPT Barcelona stream came to an end, six Team Pros sauntered up to the feature TV table and a battle for the ages commenced.

Blood was drawn. Tears were shed. Shots were fired in every direction.

They could not have expected, nor would they have wished to see, as much of the mad and macabre as they were to see that day.

We’re talking about the hotly anticipated WCOOP League 2024 Draft, and you can watch and read about it now.

How it works, in a nutshell: Six Team Pro captains draft a five-player team for the upcoming World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP). Each player earns points throughout the series based on how well they perform in each event, and those points are tallied to make a team total. The winning team has the most points at the end.

How you can get involved: Back your favourite team and if that team wins the league, you’ll play a freeroll awarding a Gold Pass worth $10,300 to the winner. Find out how to do it here.

Following on from the success of the inaugural SCOOP League in May, team captains Benjamin “Spraggy” Spragg, Fintan “easywithaces” Hand, Parker “Tonkaaaa” Talbot, and defending champion Lex Veldhuis were all back in the hot seat for another go.

Things are a little different this time around, though. For starters, we have two brand new team captains joining the fold: Andre Akkari and Sebastian “peace&loove” Huber, both hoping to put their stamp on the league format (and both did, drafting interesting teams).

Veldhuis won the first pick in a hand of Crazy Pineapple. It was a snake-style draft. 

Here’s how it all went down…

THE MANY LIVES OF LISA GORDON

Friday at EPT Barcelona has been designated Womens’s Day. We had the launch this morning of the Women’s Winter Series and the Women’s event is now under way too.

This is also the right time to celebrate the presence in Barcelona this week of a Silver Pass winner named Lisa Gordon, who should by rights be a poker superstar. However, even if she won a couple of EPT Main Events, Gordon’s life story is so rich that it would probably only be a small footnote.

In a 10-minute interview at the beginning of the week, Gordon said that she had “led many lives”. She went on to describe her time as a screenwriter, a university professor, a stevedore, a biker (riding with the Hell’s Angels), a route planner for a troupe of newspaper boys and girls, a restaurant worker, a writer of greetings cards, a jewellery maker and a Hollywood story advisor.

Throughout it all, she has also been a poker player, finding a parallel in the card game with many of her professions.

Poker, she says, is “a series of decisions that must be made, and must be made correctly”, just like writing. Poker, as we all know, is a male-dominated arena, much like life on the docks in Duluth, Minnesota, where only three women worked alongside hundreds of men loading 100 pound sacks onto pallets to be sent out to sea.

Poker is a game sometimes steeped in bravado and too much testosterone, much as Gordon found life in the biker gangs. And sometimes poker is a world where money talks perhaps too loudly, leaving the small-time players facing an existential battle among the heavy-hitters. That’s how Gordon found the world of wholesale jewellery sales in New York — especially after her handmade items had been spotted and bought by a representative of retail giant Neiman Marcus.

“I’ve packed a lot of miles into these 65 years,” Gordon said, pausing briefly in apparent disbelief still that she was that old. It prompted a self-reflective expletive, something that’s common in conversation with Gordon. It’s a remnant of the days back on the Duluth docks. “That’s where I learned to swear like a sailor, like a stevedore actually,” she said. “The experience was illuminating.”

Poker first came into Gordon’s life when she was in her 20s and the outlaw biker gangs she was hanging with “allowed” her to play.

“I had my own Harley Davidson and they respected me enough to play cards with me and let me change their oil and their batteries and their tyres and ride at the back of the pack,” she said. “And we played poker, and I would beat them. They didn’t much care for that. But I found that I could play, and I liked it.”

Although Gordon kept her Harley — it’s back in her brother’s barn in Wisconsin — she eventually relocated to the UK and settled in Sussex, in the south of England. It was here that she discovered online poker and a passion for the game rekindled.

“I realised why I loved playing poker, all the different levels and strategies and ways of thinking and approaching decision-making,” Gordon said. She found PokerStars, and then the Poker in the Ears podcast, and she was first in the queue when Joe Stapleton and James Hartigan celebrated the 300th edition of the podcast with a live show in London earlier this year.

Gordon says she bribed her way in with gifts for the presenters, and then won a Silver Pass as a bounty award in one of the small games arranged at the Hippodrome that night. The Silver Pass earned her a trip to Barcelona and a seat in the Estrellas Main Event.

Though the tournament didn’t last long, Gordon found herself in front of the TV crew’s cameras, trying to stop herself swearing as she told her incredible life’s tales.

“I busted out first hand, but I’m here and I’ve been treated so beautifully,” Gordon said. “Everyone has been so kind.”

Gordon now teaches screenwriting at the University of Surrey, in Guildford, and runs a production company with her sister: “GBGG Productions” (it stands for Great Big Giant Girls). But Gordon continues to add more irons to the fire, with no intention of ever slowing down.

“I’m only 65,” she said. “I would like to become a lap-dancer.”

But before that line of questioning could go any further, Gordon was off. “Can I finish my beer now?” she said.

THE END OF REDRAWS

As you may have read, PokerStars Live Events debuted a few minor rules changes here in Barcelona, all of which (as always) are designed to further guarantee game integrity and a level playing field for all.

Today, with 40 players left in the Main Event, we’ll see another of the rules come into effect. From now on, every time the field reduces to a multiple of eight players, tournament officials will break a random table, rather than the table with the highest number. This process will continue for the rest of the tournament; there will be no full redraws.

If the sentences above don’t make much sense, here’s a quick explainer.

In tournament poker, a large starting field is gradually whittled down as players are knocked out. It follows that the number of tables needed to house the remaining field grows similarly smaller. On the EPT, there are eight players at each table, so when eight players are knocked out, one table is closed and its occupants are assigned a new seat. They get scattered across the room to fill the seats vacated by the eliminated players.

To keep things orderly and logical, the tournament tables typically break from the highest number downwards. If there are 100 tables in play at the start of the day, Table 100 will break first, then Table 99, etc., etc. Tables 1-10 won’t break that day.

It means that if you’re sitting at Table 100, you can kind of predict when you’re about to be moved. If you happen to be a few spots away from the big blind, you could (if you were so inclined) take a little bit longer over your actions in a bid to delay paying the big blind.

When your table breaks, you get a random seat, which may well be further from the big blind than your current position.

With big fields and big stacks, the advantage to this knowledge is minimal. However, when only a few tables remain, it can be a much bigger deal, so the incentive to “stall” (as these delaying tactics are known) grows.

Similarly, complete table redraws are a well-established part of tournament mechanics. When the field is reduced to 24 players, they shake up the tables entirely. Every player gets a new seating assignment in what’s known as a complete redraw. But this too encourages stalling. When 25 players are left, players on all four tables know that there will be a redraw when the next player is knocked out. So they might stall if the big blind is approaching.

All of which is why the EPT has now changed this. Instead of breaking tables from high to low, tables will now break in a completely random order. When the field reduces to a multiple of eight, tournament officials will do a random draw and decide which table will break. Then, when the field is reduced by another eight, they’ll do another random draw.

Complete redraws are now a thing of the past.

The only potential negative to this concerns the television table. In the past, the TV directors would select a table with a low number to feature on the television set. This is because there’s a certain amount of admin involved with getting players seated on the feature table. (They need to be attached to microphones, while they also need new graphics, etc., for the broadcast.)

But the TV table is now no longer immune from selection as the one to break. “If that one gets picked, that one will break,” Tournament Director Toby Stone said today.

While it could mean a slightly longer pause in play when a table breaks, we should make up that time in the absence of stalling. And, as ever, the whole thing is simply more fair for all, which is the main thing.

FINTAN’S GOLDEN HAND: NAPT PASS PULLED BUT ANOTHER MYSTERY AWAITS…

Mystery Bounty break times aren’t the calm, serene affairs you get in Main Events. You won’t see players meditating in the hallways or getting together for quick strategy chats. 

Instead, a crowd of executioners line up one by one to trade in the bounty plaques they earned by eliminating players, in the hope of pulling an envelope containing a big prize. Top of today’s wish list in the €3K EPT Barcelona Mystery Bounty? One of the two €100,000 prizes. 

But there was one very special envelope hidden inside the exquisite bounty box. It contained a Gold Pass worth $10,000 that would see one lucky player win an expenses-paid trip to Las Vegas for the North American Poker Tour (NAPT) in November.

It could have been drawn by any of the 100+  players left in the event who have busted a player. But who went and pulled it?

PokerStars Team Pro Fintan “easywithaces” Hand. 

The Irishman was ecstatic to scoop the coveted Gold Pass, but he couldn’t help but have a bad taste in his mouth. “They’re going to think it was rigged for Team Pro”, he told himself. Of course, it wasn’t. The bounty envelopes just work in mysterious ways.

But here’s the good news. 

PokerStars has decided to add ANOTHER NAPT Gold Pass to the €1,650 EPT Mystery Bounty that kicks off tomorrow. Anyone who makes it to the bounty stage will be in with a shot every time they secure a KO.

Before Hand’s turn at the box, we saw several other players pull big bounty prizes.

There was quite an audience for Pablo Aranovich’s envelope unveiling, and many of them weren’t even in the room. The Argentinian traded his three bounty plaques for envelopes while play was paused on the bubble, and his friends were on hand not only to rail but broadcast proceedings to friends back home using a multi-way video call. 

They erupted when Aranovich pulled a €10,000 prize, plus two €1,000s.

Next up it was China’s Xiaohu Liu’s turn, but not before he got his friend to take a selfie with the man behind him, Niklas “Lena900” Astedt. The successful Swede – who we’ve seen asked for selfies long before his World Series of Poker Main Event final table – was more than happy to do it and gave Liu a high-five when he subsequently pulled €10,000.

Astedt was up next with three envelopes. He opened the first one himself and saw €25,000 (how good do some people run?), then let his partner pull the other two: €10,000 and €1,000.

Shortly after a €50,000 prize was pulled. We went over to congratulate the winner only for him to inform us he was pulling the prize on behalf of his friend, Jack Stone. “I have a piece though,” he said with a huge smile.

Since we left the tournament room we’ve learned that Danish pro Henrik Junker is the lucky recipient of one of the €100Ks, but there’s one left at the time of writing.

A BLAST FROM THE BARCELONA PAST

A lot of things have changed on the European Poker Tour (EPT) over the past 20 years, but PokerStars Blog has been a fixture for all but the very earliest events.

Having missed the first trip to Barcelona in 2004, the Blog was a going concern by the time returned for the second time. We were here to witness French dentist Jan Boubli defeat a field of 327 players and win €416,000.

That was a staggering amount of money in 2005, where poker tournaments outside Las Vegas very rarely had buy-ins of four figures. The EPT Main Event buy-in was €4,000 for that event, and this kick-started the exceptional inflation of prizes for this tournament in particular.

It’s amusing now to look back at the players at the final table and remember their relative status.

Boubli was an underdog, one of the first in a long line of amateur players who managed to upset the odds on the grandest stage. But while the standout name now is clearly Patrik Antonius, he certainly wasn’t considered the star attraction back then.

Antonius was no better known that Boubli back then. He had made a run to 12th in the PCA that year, followed by a 15th place finish at a WPT event in San Jose in May. He had then picked up a first career win in a low buy-in event in Stockholm, but the final table appearance in the Barcelona Main Event was his first score on the EPT.

I watched that final table from the closest quarters — I was one of only two English-language reporters covering it, from a press area that was nothing more than a table under the stairs — and although Antonius turned a few heads for his looks and physique, no one picked him as a future legend of the game. The main point of interest was his status as a “former tennis player”.

One month later, Antonius proved his appearance was no fluke when he took down the EPT Baden main event for his first major title. He now has too many of those to count and documented live tournament earnings of more than $23 million, plus a place in the Poker Hall of Fame.

The undoubted “big name” at the final table that year was Antonius’ fellow Nordic, Gus Hansen. The Great Dane had already won three WPT titles to that point, from his five WPT final tables. That included outright victories in the PCA when it was part of the WPT, as well as in the same San Jose tournament where Antonius had run deep.

It was an amazing thrill to have a player of Hansen’s stature playing on the EPT, and the fact he made the final was even more exhilarating. His elimination in fifth was positively deflating.

Sweden’s Christer Johansson, who finished second behind Boubli, was also a bigger name than Antonius at the time. Johansson also had a WPT title to his name already, having won in Paris in February 2003. He had also made a World Series final table, finishing fifth in a $2,000 buy-in S.H.O.E. event, which was won by Daniel Negreanu.

We also knew more about eighth-placed finisher Romain Feriolo than we did about Antonius at the time. Feriolo had finished fourth at the EPT Grand Final Main Event a couple of months before the trip to Barcelona, at which he had become the first Spanish player to make an EPT final.

He was the solitary Spanish player at his home event too, which made him the first and the second Spaniard ever to appear on the hallowed EPT final table felt. Famously, it took another decade until a Spaniard ever won an EPT. Adrian Mateos, who got over the line in 2015, remains the only one.

Dario Alioto, Anton Bergstroem and Patrick Martenson completed that final table. Alioto still plays plenty and made eight WSOP cashes this summer, including a sixth-place finish in a $10K Stud event. Bergstroem is a more sporadic live tournament player, but he was back here in Barcelona this week for another shot at the big time.

As for Martenson, he is the only player from that final to have essentially withdrawn now from the game, presumably to focus on other pursuits. However, he is still mentioned regularly in the press room having left his mark on tournament reporters during those early seasons, where his Barcelona result was his first of three final tables.

As we gathered information on Martenson to prepare the final table player profiles for the event, one of his friends told our credulous media coordinator that he was the reigning world Monopoly champion. It was, at the time, no less likely than there being a world poker champion and we ran with it, repeating it again when Martenson cashed in Dublin the following month and made the final table again in both Deauville and Warsaw.

But it was, in short, nonsense. The “fact” had been made up on a whim, with no one seeing any reason to check it. So it was that this EPT Barcelona final was billed as featuring a dentist, a former tennis player and the world Monopoly champion.

We can’t always get things right, but we’re still here 19 years later.

Qualifier set to join Romania’s top dogs

If you’ve ever wondered who looks after the pets of Bucharest’s top poker players when they’re travelling the European Poker Tour (EPT) circuit (and let’s face it, who hasn’t wondered that?), then we’ve found the answer. 

Like qualifiers at an EPT, those poker pets are being treated to a VIP experience in the pet resort owned by Catalin Moraru, one of the last remaining online qualifiers in the EPT Barcelona Main Event.

The idea came to the 43-year-old – who booked his trip to Barcelona in a €530 direct satellite – when he was working at a security company with a canine division. “That was the spark,” he says. “People are travelling a lot and they need to leave their pets with someone, especially big dogs, so we thought it would be a good business for the future.”

Sadly, Moraru’s own beloved dogs passed away a few years ago. It means he has more freedom to travel the poker circuit, though, and he’s become good friends with many Romanian players. “They’re all pros,” he says. “I’m somewhere in between [pro and recreational].”

Since 2010 he’s followed the classic route into poker – home games then online then bigger and bigger live events – and he clinched a breakout result in the Eureka Prague Main Event in December 2023, finishing third out of an enormous field to earn a career-best €219,120. 

Moraru’s focused on big events ever since, mostly EPTs, and this is already his best Main Event result. “I’m grateful for the experience so far but it’s been very tough, I haven’t made any hands and I’ve always been short-stacked.”

Despite a double-up early on Day 4 (pocket sixes holding against ace-ten suited) he says he’s gone right back to being card dead. But it’s nothing he hasn’t overcome before en route to a big score.

“Patience and resilience,” he says. “Those are the key factors.”

WICIAK AND VAN LUIJK TARGET HISTORY; A LOOK AT REPEAT FINAL TABLE PLAYERS

It’s Day 4 of the EPT Barcelona Main Event and a few excellent potential stories are starting to develop. None are better than the presence of both Simon Wiciak and Derk Van Luijk in the Day 4 field — i.e, the defending EPT Barcelona champion from last year (Wiciak) and the most recent EPT Monte Carlo champion (Van Luijk).

Wiciak could potentially defend his Barcelona title, while Van Luijk could go back-to-back in EPT Main Events. Needless to say, either of these achievements would be unprecedented, at least in the live arena.

There have only ever been three two-time EPT Main Event champions — Victoria Coren Mitchell, Mikalai Pobal and Mike Watson — and there were several years between each of their victories. Back-to-back live wins in the Main Event don’t happen.

Of course, the fourth EPT double champion — the player known only as “WhatIfGod” — won both their titles when the EPT was forced online during the years of the Covid pandemic. And this was indeed a back-to-back title defence. We also saw Kayhan Mokri successfully defend his EPT Barcelona Super High Roller title this week, but that was the first time it’s ever happened — and from a much smaller player pool.

If we focus only on live tournaments, however, Wiciak and Van Luijk have the potential to do something very special indeed. The odds are still heavily stacked against it, of course. There are still more than 100 players left at time of writing. But it’s time to at least ignite this potential dream.

While we’re on the subject of potential repeat deep runs, here’s the kind of EPT trivia dump that some readers find interesting.

Even if Wiciak makes the final table here, he’ll join a pretty select bunch. Only two other players have ever made more than one EPT Barcelona final table: John Juanda (eighth in 2012; winner in 2015) and Andre Akkari (fifth in 2017 and 2023).

However, a remarkable 135 players have made more than one EPT final table during the tour’s first 20 years. Only 30 players have made three or more. Only five players have been at four finals. And only one has been at more than that.

That player is Luca Pagano, who made an incredible seven EPT Main Event final tables, all in the tour’s first eight seasons.

Here’s the full list of multiple final table appearances on the EPT:

SEVEN FTs – 1 player

Luca Pagano

FOUR FTs – 4 players

Martin Jacobson, Mike McDonald, Ram Vaswani, Steve O’Dwyer

THREE FTs – 25 players

Andrea Benelli, Andrew Chen, Anthony Gregg, Antony Lellouche, Arnaud Mattern, Dario Minieri, Davidi Kitai, Frederik Jensen, Hossein Ensan, Jake Cody, Jan Bendik, Jason Mercier, Johannes Strassman, John Juanda, Johnny Lodden, Julian Thew, Kevin McPhee, Nicolas Levi, Ole Schemion, Patrik Antonius, Robin Ylitalo, Theo Jorgensen, Trond Eidsvig, William Thorson, Yorane Kerignard.

TWO FTs – 105 players

Aage Ravn, Aleh Plauski, Alex Gomes, Alexander Stevic, Andre Akkari, Andrea Dato, Andreas Christoforou, Andreas Wiese, Andrey Shatilov, Antoine Saout, Antonin Duda, Artur Wasek, Atanas Gueorguiev, Barny Boatman, Benny Spindler, Bertrand Grospellier, Brandon Schaefer, Bruno Launais, Christian Harder, Clayton Mozdzen, Dag Palovic, Daniel Dvoress, Daniel Negreanu, David Boyaciyan, David Peters, Denes Kalo, Diego Zeiter, Dimitar Danchev, Dmitry Vitkind, Dmitry Yurasov, Dominik Panka, Edgar Skjervold, Eugene Katchalov, Francesco De Vivo, George McKeever, Gino Alacqua, Harry Lodge, Isaac Baron, Jacob Rasmussen, Jan Sjavik, Jan Skampa, Jason Wheeler, Javier Gomez, Jimmy Guerrero, Johan Storakers, Juan Maceiras, Kevin Iacofano, Kirill Gerasimov, Kiryl Radzivonau, Koen de Visscher, Kristian Kjondal, Kully Sidhu, Ludovic Lacay, Marc Karam, Marcel Luske, Marcin Horecki, Mario Puccini, Mark Teltscher, Marko Neumann, Marton Czuczor, Matas Cimbolas, Max Heinzelmann, Maxim Lykov, Michael Martin, Michael Tureniec, Mike Watson, Mikolai Pobal, Nico Behling, Nikita Kuznetsov, Noah Boeken, Ognyan Dimov, Pablo Gordillo, Parker Talbot, Patrick Clarke, Patric Martenson, Peter Eastgate, Peter Eichhardt, Peter Hedlund, Peter Jorgne, Pierre Neuville, Pratyush Buddiga, Raffaele Sorrentino, Rainer Kempe, Ramon Colillas, Rasmus Nielsen, Raul Mestre, Remi Castaignon, Rob Hollink, Roberto Romanello, Romain Feriolo, Ruben Visser, Ruslan Prydryk, Sebastian Ruthenberg, Slaven Popov, Sotirios Koutoupas, Thierry van den Berg, Timothy Adams, Toby Lewis, Vadim Kursevich, Victoria Coren Mitchell, Vladimir Troyanovskiy, Vladislav Naumov, WhatIfGod, Xuan Liu.

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FROM LOCKDOWN TO ITM AT EPT BARCELONA

Opening a small business is never without risk, but your heart must go out to anyone who tried to do it in early 2020.

That was when Matthew Gillingham cut the ribbon on Legends Billiards & Lounge in Brantford, Ontario, a beautifully appointed pool hall, bar and kitchen in this city of 100,000 people. Within three months, however, the pool players of Brantford were in lockdown as the world grappled with the Covid-19 pandemic.

The shutters came down on the pool hall and the brains behind it, the previous owner of an online business, had to find something else to do with his time.

“The first time I played a hand of poker was in 2020, right at the start of the pandemic,” Gillingham says. “I just randomly tried it one day…One of my good friends was big into poker at the time, so I got to ask him a lot of questions, and learned off him. And then during the pandemic I just played a lot online and studied a lot and eventually it came to fruition I guess.”

In Gillingham’s case, coming to fruition meant learning the game to such a level that he could turn pro, and eventually make his way to EPT Barcelona. In his short career, he has already played the World Series a few times, finished heads-up for a bracelet on twice, and qualified for EPT Monte Carlo and EPT Barcelona.

He was not able to turn the former trip into a first live cash outside of North America. But he has now landed that prize here in Catalonia, cruising into the money on Day 3 of the Main Event.

“I’ve been loving it,” Gillingham says. “It’s all run very professionally, and it’s a more serious game than in Vegas or North America…My first day I had a bit of a rough stretch and came into Day 2 not really even wanting to play. But I ran really good Day 2 and finished 11th at the start of Day 3. It’s been pretty smooth sailing so far.”

To make it even better, Gillingham won his package to EPT Barcelona in similarly smooth fashion, max late-regging a CAD$500 satellite on PokerStars Ontario, and winning one of two packages available. The package, remember, means not only a buy-in to the Main Event, but also accommodation for two in a luxury hotel, as well as travel expenses to get players here.

Gillingham is here with his girlfriend, enjoying the sights and the restaurants of Barcelona, even as his success at the tables necessarily means less time for recreation.

“It’s fine,” Gillingham says. “She doesn’t mind just chilling. She understands and she plays as well. She understands that the longer I’m here, it’s going to be good news.”

At time of writing, Gillingham is still sitting with a stack of about 75 big blinds with fewer than 170 players left, already guaranteed a payday of more than €11,000. It’s another milestone on the 31-year-old’s career, who says he enjoys playing live tournaments because “the stakes are significantly higher than I normally play and that brings out my competitive drive”.

Gillingham has been hearing at the tables that EPT Cyprus is not to be missed and he’s setting his sights on playing that one too. But the Barcelona excursion is far from over, with the big money only just coming into view.

And as for the pool hall? That’s doing all right as well. “It worked out,” Gillingham says. “It’s fine now. And luckily poker’s been working out, so it was good.”

It’s $1 Wings on Wednesdays at Legends, so head down there and tell them to get the EPT stream on the big screen!

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BUBBLE DRAMA, BARCELONA STYLE

The headline news from the first hour at EPT Barcelona is that the bubble on this huge Main Event has burst. Zachary Habayeb bust in 288th place, leaving the remaining 287 to collect a minimum €8,700 payout.

But, as always, it wasn’t quite as simple as that.

The tension for this one began building overnight as Day 2 wrapped with 293 players left, six from the money.

“They should have played into the money yesterday,” said Alex Torelli, shuffling some of his big stack in preparation for a long day to come.

“They need it for TV purposes,” said table-mate Stephen Song, correctly noting that this part of the tournament would be a great introduction to the third day of play for the hundreds of thousands of people who watch the action from home.

Bubble coverage has become a key part of the PokerStars Live offering, setting it even further apart from the numerous other attempts at live poker tournament coverage. The EPT crew goes that extra inch in making sure this key part gets screened, even if it does include an often desperate battle for the production staff through the agitated masses.

It also adds further pressure on the tournament staff to make sure numbers are accurate and that every all-in and call is covered. “We have to get the all-ins,” Toby Stone said, marshalling his troops. “If we don’t, TV are going to chop my head off.”

Play got under way, and eliminations started immediately.

Mat Frankland became the first player to depart. It was silent and without drama. He had 17 big blinds but they were gone. Sylvester Kubiak was next out, followed quickly by Paolo Boi. Boi had the second smallest stack of any coming back today and was unable to spin it up.

Wolf Weber also bust before the money. He had 172,000 when play began, but a flop of 6♠ 10♥ J♠ turned out to be his undoing. That’s because Weber had K♠ Q♠ for a huge combo draw, plus over-cards, while his opponent Carlos Lopez had flopped top set with his pair of jacks.

The turn was one of the over-cards, but it was irrelevant. The river was a brick and Weber was out. PokerStars Ambassador Lali Tournier, on the secondary feature table, was also being coolered out of the event. Tournier flopped top two pair with Q♣ 9♣ but Alexander “Wolfgang Poker” Seibt, with pocket sevens, had flopped a set on the 7♥ Q♦ 9♦ flop. Turn and river were blanks.

Tournier’s elimination left us on the stone bubble or, as it’s known in these parts, the Stone bubble. Yep, Toby Stone, not yet decapitated, plays a big part. And this bubble, like others before it, was one that stretched on for more than 90 minutes, with at least five short stacks doubling up — and one, Alexandre Raymond, doing so twice.

The first major huddle of media and anxious players descended on Table 3. This was a big one between Oscar Mas and Theo Degrave, and they had two huge hands. Degrave’s pocket queens flopped a set, but Mas’s pocket kings left it until the last card to complete his. Set over set for heaps kept Mas alive.

Two more big stacks then went to war. Piero Alioto’s stack of more than 250K was in the middle, called by Gabriel Cunha whose stack was even bigger. The media scrum shuffled over to the table, allowing Stone, with his one-man security detail, eventually to wriggle to the table too.

A colleague from the tournament staff shouted over. “Toby, Toby! They’re still playing!” We waited until feature table action was done. Then we saw Alioto table pocket jacks and Cunha show A♠ K♦ . The flop of 5♠ 7♦ Q♠ brought a sweat for Alioto, but the turn and river were blanks. He survived.

Next up, a first double for Raymond. The man known as “aminolast” online, who is also very familiar to readers of PokerStars Blog, https://pokerstarslearn.com/poker/learn/news/the-anonymity-is-over-for-pca-qualifier-alexandre-aminolast-raymond/, had pretty much his entire stack in the middle from the small blind. He had a good hand though, A♣ Q♣ , and it beat Carlos Jurado’s 5♦ 8♣ . Raymond doubled.

That took us over to Table 12, where the French pair Nolan Madene and Fabrice Maltez were all in pre-flop. And here’s where the well-oiled machine suffered a slight malfunction.

Stone made his difficult way to the table, dodging through the media throng like an embattled MP visiting a magistrates court to contest a parking ticket. He checked the situation in front of him, noting the all-in triangle in front of Madene, and then asked the players to show their hands.

Madene had pocket threes and Maltez had pocket jacks. The board ran 2♦ 6♣ 5♠ J♥ K♦ and the set of jacks was a clear winner. Stone announced over the microphone, “Congratulations players, you are all in the money!” and the room reacted in jubilation.

However, players at the table, led by Gold Pass winner Cameron Sinclair sitting next to Maltez, quickly indicated something was wrong. They waved their hands at Stone and he quickly noticed that Madene had by far the bigger stack. Although he had lost the hand — and the all-in triangle was in front of him — he still had plenty of chips to spare.

Maltez had doubled up, but Madene was still alive. We were NOT, in fact, in the money.

“Apologies, apologies,” Stone offered over the microphone. He put his hands over his face and apologised several more times. It happens to the best of us.

So, on they went. There was quickly another double-up, with Venelin Pashev’s aces holding against Hans Erlandsson’s A♥ K♥ . Now Raymond was also all-in again. This time he was in real trouble, with pocket queens against Viktor Jensen’s aces. The flop more than doubled his outs, though. It came 8♦ J♥ 9♠ . The turn was the blank 6♥ , but eyes rolled around the room as the 10♦ appeared on the river.

Raymond chuckled and took the spoils of a second double up.

And then, finally, it was done. News broke across the room of an all-in and call on the secondary feature table, sending the press corps over the ropes of the TV set. “Come one, come all,” joked Seibt. Wolfgang is accustomed to massive audiences. He wasnot, however, involved in the hand, which pitted Riccardo Saraniero against Zachary Habayeb.

Saraniero had A♣ J♣ on a flop that showed both the 5♣ and the 2♣ . Habayeb had pocket eights. The 4♣ turn proved to be crucial, filling Saraniero’s flush and sending Habayeb out. It was the end of a tortuous bubble, and opened the floodgates of eliminations.

Everyone enjoyed it really. Except Habayeb. And even he could smile.

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MEET “THE ELIMINATOR” KIAN KIANI

The Devil Fish. The Great Dane. The Mouth. The Kid. The Flying Dutchman. The Grinder. The Magician. The Poker Brat. The Prince of Poker. 

When the 2024 EPT Barcelona Main Event ends on Sunday, we could have a new addition to poker’s list of nicknames. 

When flicking through the player list at the beginning of Day 2, one stood out: Kian “The Eliminator” Kiani – the only player on the list to have a nickname displayed proudly on the PokerStars Live app.

The origin of the name? “I used to wear a pair of sunglasses that made me look like the Terminator, but I didn’t want to be called that so I came up with The Eliminator,” Kiani tells us on his way to the table.

It was tempting to talk to him at the time based on nothing but his intriguing title, and in hindsight, we wish we had. Kiani ended Day 2 with the largest stack (775,000) and leads the 293 remaining players into Day 3 and a bubble that’s fit to burst imminently.

He’s been playing poker for 20 years but is by no means a pro. A former banker, he retired from full-time work but occasionally works as a consultant, playing poker for fun along the way.

Kiani has just two live results on his resume to date and both were in events at EPT Barcelona. He finished 334th for €4,650 in last year’s Estrellas Poker Tour (ESPT) Main Event – the biggest PokerStars-sponsored event in history – and this year cashed the €550 Cup for €1,270.

That means whatever happens today, Kiani will be heading home with a career-best score. 

Hasta la vista, Kiani.

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GOLD PASS WINNER KOLENDOWSKI JOGGING INTO THE MONEY

Bartosh Kolendowski is one of 293 players returning to EPT Barcelona today to play into Day 3 of the Main Event. For most, the exhaustion is beginning to show: they’re going into Level 15 but are not even halfway through.

It won’t be a problem for Kolendowski, however.

“We ran 14K yesterday and the day before seven,” said Kolendowski, for whom the EPT Main Event is not the only lengthy race ahead of him. “I have my wife here with me. We are preparing for a half marathon in Berlin in April.”

Kolendowski, 38, has mastered the slow-but-steady approach favoured by both smart athletes and poker players. While he’s getting his body properly prepared for the big race in Berlin, he is also a regular at the PokerStars satellite tables, earning his way into these major events.

He enjoys the Power Path in particular, and won both a Silver and a Gold Pass allowing him this trip to Barcelona. (He also won a ticket to the EPT Main Event via conventional satellite means, but that one is now in the bank for future redemption.)

“I just played two $11 and I won. And a $109 and just won,” he said. “It’s very nice.”

A physiotherapist by trade, Kolendowski owns his own company and plays poker in whatever downtime he can find. Usually content at the slightly lower stakes, he made his EPT debut here in Barcelona last year. He didn’t cash the tournament, but it gave him the motivation to improve his game and return.

“I made a lot of progress this year because after I lost last year I learned a lot and came for revenge,” he said. He now sits with 25 big blinds with a plan to survive into the money before opening up his game.

It would represent a first documented cash and confirm the value of his training. “The best thing is that I made progress,” Kolendowski said. “I played really good.”

There’s still a long way to go, but once the bubble has burst, it’s all downhill from here.

A JOYOUS AWAY DAY FROM EPT BARCELONA

For the past few years, players at EPT Barcelona have enjoyed the chance to take a day trip away from the tables and join a team-building exercise at the luxury Can Tarranc estate. There they will find a swimming pool, a tranquil garden and a generously stocked grill and bar — but also a a schedule of high-adrenaline activities with prizes on offer to the best team.

Players tend to return exhausted but exhilarated, full of stories of derring do alongside embarrassment, with their team T-shirts stained with both sweat and tears.

This year’s trip out to Can Tarranc was no exception. There were pugil stick bouts, inflatable obstacle courses, swimming races and chess games. Here’s a selection of photos to give only the slightest taste of the action.

You’ll have to join us next year at EPT Barcelona to experience this brilliant activity first hand.

POKER DREAM VARIATIONS: VITTI’S VERSION

Everyone’s version of the poker dream is different. 

For a first-time qualifier at a European Poker Tour (EPT) event, the dream might be to have an unforgettable experience on and off the tables, and possibly land a big score to help ease life’s pressures. 

For an up-and-coming pro, the dream might be to enjoy a breakout score on a big stage, and they don’t come much bigger than an EPT Main Event.

For a successful, grizzled veteran, the dream might be as simple as looking good in the photos you know will be plastered around social media when you win yet another trophy.

Italy’s Dionisio Vitti has been living his version of the poker dream since 2007, despite barely playing a hand for nearly a decade. 

The 39-year-old from near Bari began playing poker professionally in 2007 while at university. He grinded for five years and when he finished his studies he’d made enough money from poker that he was able to take his bankroll and set up his dream business making video games. A second venture – a digital marketing agency – was founded soon after.

Twelve years on, those businesses are now doing so well that Vitti has decided to return to his first love and play purely for fun. “I’m very fortunate and I love this game,” he tells us. “I love the mechanics behind it. I’m a software engineer and a mathematician. You can mix these skills to get poker strategies.”

Vitti might be in a fortunate position, but he also recognises a great opportunity when he sees one. He played his first live events since 2010 last year and it’s all thanks to Power Path.

He’s won multiple Silver Passes since the promotion began, but it was a Gold Pass worth $10,300 that brought him to Barcelona, where he cashed the Estrellas Poker Tour (ESPT) Main Event for €3,930 and is now playing the EPT Main.

“I love to play events with Power Path passes because you don’t have to spend money,” he says. “The [Power Path] fields are very good and give you good possibilities of winning big.”

As much as Vitti loves to play, he loves studying poker just as much and whenever he’s not working he’s working on his game. He says a deep run in an event like EPT Barcelona would boost his confidence, even if it won’t necessarily change his life. It’s all about having fun for Vitti, and if that’s not the poker dream then we don’t know what is.

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TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE IN THE ULTIMATE EPT QUIZ

What better way to celebrate 20 years of the European Poker Tour than by delving deep into our knowledge bank to produce a mind-bending EPT trivia quiz?

James Hartigan played quiz master as the Player Lounge at EPT Barcelona became a competitive pub quiz on Monday night. There were nine or 10 teams of up to five players each trying to answer some tricky questions. We covered all 20 years of the EPT: the stats, the champions and the memorable moments.

Do you think you know your EPT history? Take the quiz and find out.

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MAIN EVENT PRIZES AND STATS: €1.5M UP TOP

As the only city to have hosted a European Poker Tour (EPT) event every year the tour has been running (can you tell we’ve been brushing up on our trivia knowledge?), Barcelona never fails to disappoint.

This year’s €5,300 EPT Barcelona Main Event is officially the fourth largest EPT ever, with 1,975 total entries (including 506 re-entries) creating a €9,578,750 prize pool.

Registration closed at the beginning of play today so we can now reveal that there’s a mouth-watering €1.5 million awaiting the champion (€1,512,000 to be exact). A total of 287 players will make the money with a min-cash worth €8,700.

Unless a deal is made, the heads-up battle will be worth a staggering €568,000. Here’s a look at the final table payouts:

1 – €1,512,000
2 – €944,000
3 – €674,150
4 – €518,600
5 – €398,950
6 – €306,900
7 – €236,100
8 – €181,600

As always the Main Event has been an international affair with 82 nations represented. Surprisingly it’s France that has the most entrants, their 519 topping Spain’s 453.

France – 519
Spain – 453
Italy – 407
United Kingdom – 129
Netherlands – 120
Germany – 116
USA – 90
Romania – 88
Sweden – 83
Ukraine – 71
Brazil – 69
Norway – 67
Switzerland – 66
Belgium – 61
Greece – 51
Israel – 50
Poland – 44
Argentina – 42
Finland – 38
Denmark – 34
Russia – 34
Ireland – 33
Hungary – 31
Bulgaria – 27
Portugal – 27
Canada – 26
Turkey – 24
China – 23
Lithuania – 19
Japan – 17
Latvia – 15
Morocco – 14
Armenia – 13
Austria – 13
Belarus – 12
Hong Kong – 12
Luxembourg – 12
Czech Republic – 10
India – 10
Uruguay – 10
Lebanon – 9
Serbia – 9
Slovakia – 9
Slovenia – 9
Mexico – 8
Colombia – 7
Croatia – 7
Iran – 7
Estonia – 6
Moldova – 6
Albania – 5
Australia – 5
Montenegro – 5
Taiwan – 5
Cyprus – 4
Georgia – 4
Iceland – 4
North Macedonia – 4
Singapore – 4
South Africa – 4
United Arab Emirates – 4
Costa Rica – 3
Kazakhstan – 3
Malaysia – 3
New Zealand – 3
Venezuela – 3
Algeria – 2
Chile – 2
Dominica – 2
Egypt – 2
South Korea – 2
Tunisia – 2
Vietnam – 2
Azerbaijan – 1
Bosnia and Herzegovina – 1
Cuba – 1
Dominican Republic – 1
Guatemala – 1
Honduras – 1
Jordan – 1
Peru – 1
Saudi Arabia – 1
Senegal – 1
Thailand – 1

Top 10 EPT Main Events in history in terms of entries:

1. EPT Barcelona 2022 — 2,294 entries, €11,125,900 prize pool
2. EPT Barcelona 2023 — 2,120 entries, €10,282,000 prize pool
3. EPT Barcelona 2019 — 1,988 entries, €9,641,800 prize pool
4. EPT Barcelona 2024 — 1,975 entries, €9,578,750 prize pool
5. EPT Barcelona 2018 — 1,931 entries, €9,365,350 prize pool
6. EPT Barcelona 2016 — 1,785 entries, €8,657,250 prize pool
7. EPT Paris 2024 — 1,747 entries, €8,385,600 prize pool
8. EPT Barcelona 2015 — 1,694 entries, €8,215,900 prize pool
9. EPT Paris 2023 — 1,606 entries, €7,708,800 prize pool
10. PCA 2011 — 1,560 entries, $15,132,000 prize pool

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EPT PAUSES TO LOOK BACK ON ITS FIRST 20 YEARS

Things got emotional this afternoon in the EPT Barcelona tournament room when play was paused in the Main Event for a special video presentation and announcement.

Cedric Billot, head of PokerStars Live Events, was joined on stage by many of the key figures from the first 20 years of the European Poker Tour (EPT) to mark this incredible milestone.

It was 20 years ago at this very location that John Duthie’s vision for a Europe-wide poker tour first came to fruition. The tour barely paused for breath over the next two decades, growing in size, expanding horizons, and becoming ever more enjoyable for the hundreds of thousands of players who continue to play.

The room watched, rapt, as the video played featuring many of the most memorable moments. It started with Alexander Stevic’s first win here in Barcelona in 2004, through icons such as Victoria Coren Mitchell winning twice, Patrik Antonius appearing on the scene, and then Barny Boatman, who has seen every year of it, finally claiming a win in 2024.

“What began as a dream two decades ago has now evolved into what is the most prestigious poker tour in the world,” an emotional Billot said. “Many faces from the video are still here today. That’s a great display of loyalty, trust, from players, from media, from staff. We have witnessed many unforgettable moments. Great poker moments, legendary winners, fantastic locations and overall fantastic life experiences.”

Duthie was one of those alongside Billot on the stage today, happy to see the continued success of his baby. Stevic was also there, still always delighted to remember the old days and his role in this incredible story.

Francine Watson, the long-serving head honcho of PokerStars’ broadcast output, received worthy applause, as well as Toby Stone, the EPT’s award-winning tournament director. Current EPT organisational maestros Julian Liarte and Margarita Kuzmina took their bows too. The EPT is in good hands as it moves into its third decade.

Out in the field, a few stalwarts from the early years have been persuaded back to play this one. They included Ram Vaswani, who won the third event and finished second in the fourth. Luca Pagano is here too, still the player with more EPT Main Event final table finishes than any other.

The dose of nostalgia got some of the longer-serving members of staff and players dabbing the corners of their eyes, before Duthie brought us all back to the present.

“I think it will probably last another 20 years,” Duthie said on the video, before seizing the room mic and instructing dealers to shuffle up and deal once again.

And so begins the 21st year…

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MOKRI GOES BACK-TO-BACK FOR SPECTACULAR €100K TITLE DEFENCE

Norway’s Kayhan Mokri tonight completed one of the rarest achievements on the European Poker Tour (EPT) when he successfully defended his $100K Super High Roller title at EPT Barcelona, a year after a breakout success in the same event.

Although he had put together a long series of high-value results over the previous eight years, including an EPT Main Event final table appearance, Mokri really burst onto the scene when he took down the $100K here in 2023, earning €750,960.

Mokri returned this week to the scene of his greatest success and somehow did it again, besting a field of 41 entries this time to claim a prize of €1,372,420. It’s the new biggest win of his career, and he now has two very attractive bookends in the form of two matching Super High Roller trophies.

“No words,” Mokri told Joe Stapleton during the winner’s presentation. “Just very lucky I guess. And some skill in it, I guess. But very fortunate.”

Stapleton made reference to how much fun Mokri continues to have at the poker table despite the money at play and the level of competition. Mokri said: “I’m playing a game that I love. And once you do something you love, you often get very good at it and are enjoying the moment. So it’s super easy for me [to have fun]. The people I’m playing with are super friendly and great people, it’s super easy to have fun at the same time.”

Mokri, who also won a €20,000 buy-in event here this week for €259,646, beat Seth Davies heads up to win this one. Davies has been on a roll of his own during recent weeks, but had to make do with €895,000 this time around.

Davies was the last player from the United States in the field, with Mokri upsetting the odds to deny an American the trophy. Three of the last six who returned today had travelled across the Atlantic to Barcelona, but Mokri will be taking the spoils back to Norway. It really consolidates his position as a high roller regular to be much feared. It was a small-ish but elite field, with Mokri once again proving his mettle.

TOURNAMENT ACTION

With 41 entries, including 13 re-entries, only six players were due to be paid. It meant that the bubble played out at the very end of Day 2, with the last player out on Sunday also becoming the last one to depart without a payday.

In his short career to date, Thomas Santerne has already sampled much of the glory on offer to young poker hotshots these days. Here in Barcelona, he suffered the ignominy of a bubble. He picked up A♠ K♥ and three-bet jammed his last 14 big blinds with it. Sean Winter called with pocket nines.

Winter won the flip and vaulted into the chip lead, while Santerne departed. The bags came out and Winter led with 3.4 million, ahead of Seth Davies’ 2.755 million, Jesse Lonis’ 1.51 million and Kayhan Mokri with 1.34 million.

Patrik Antonius (650,000) and Santhosh Suvarna (595,000) were the short stacks of the final six, and the final day proved to be short for both of them. Antonius departed first, losing with K♥ J♥ to Lonis’s pocket sevens. Suvarna managed to stick around slightly longer, and pulled off one double to survive. But he still perished in fifth when an A♥ Q♦ vs. pocket nines match-up went in favour of the pocket pair. Mokri held the nines.

Antonius earned €278,400 for his troubles. Suvarna won €358,000.

The final day already had a distinctly American feel to it even before Antonius and Suvarna were knocked out. But now three of the last four were representing the Stars and Stripes, with only the defending champion Mokri standing in the way.

Mokri watched on as Davies cracked Winter’s kings with pocket sevens to score an enormous double. But then Mokri doubled his own stack through Davies to move back into the comfort zone. (Mokri hit a jack with J♣ 9♣ and beat Davies’ K♦ Q♠ .)

Davies took the same hand up against Lonis soon after, however, and this time managed the come-from-behind victory to send Lonis out in fourth. Lonis three-bet jammed for 11 big blinds with A♠ 2♠ but Davies hit a king with his K♣ Q♠ . That sent Lonis out in fourth for €457,400.

Mokri was the short stack still, but doubled twice in quick succession, both times with pocket eights. The first time was through Winter’s A♦ K♥ and he followed up with a double through Davies’ A♥ 2♠ . All of a sudden, he was in the lead.

That allowed Mokri the luxury of sitting back and watching Winter and Davies go to war. Winter first took a huge pot from Davies with K♥ 7♥ doubling through Davies’ pocket 10s. But Winter then tried a triple-barrel bluff against the same opponent and Davies picked him off.

This had was a doozy: Winter limped from the small blind with J♦ 4♣ and Davies saw a flop with Q♥ 4♦ . Winter bet every street on the K♦ A♥ 6♦ 7♦ Q♣ run-out and Davies eventually made the call on the end, having belatedly hit third pair.

It was good and left Winter on fumes. His last chips went in soon after, and Davies his a pair of deuces with his 4♠ 2♥ to finish off Winter. His third place was worth €616,000.

Mokri and Davies were evenly stacked in the heads-up duel, but a quick cooler soon catapulted us to the finishing line. Davies had J♦ 9♦ and limped from the small blind. Mokri raised with pocket fives in the big blind. Davies called and loved the flop of J♥ 8♥ 9♣ .

Mokri nonetheless bet out for a couple of big blinds, and Davies called. The 5♠ turn was an absolute bullet for Mokri, turning him a set. Mokri checked it for deception and allowed Davies to hang himself. Davies bet for about half pot, and Mokri sprang the trap. He moved all in for a stack almost exactly the same size as Davies’.

Davies didn’t take too long before calling, and quickly learned the bad news. Davies had outs, but missed them when the 8♣ came off. That was that for this Super High Roller. Mokri was the champion again!

RESULTS

Event 22: €100,000 Super High Roller
Dates: August 31-September 2, 2024
Entries: 41 (inc. 13 re-entries)
Prize pool: €3,977,820

1 Kayhan Mokri (Norway) – €1,372,420
2 Seth Davies (USA) – €895,000
3 Sean Winter (USA) – €616,600
4 Jesse Lonis (USA) – €457,400
5 Santhosh Suvarna (India) – €358,000
6 Patrik Antonius (Finland) – €278,400

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FROM CRISIS TO COMEBACK

The only certainty in poker is that nothing is certain – something Power Path qualifier Cameron Sinclair learned the hard way eight years ago.

The 39-year-old from Bristol is in Barcelona playing his first European Poker Tour event, something he might have ticked off years ago had his professional poker career not derailed due to bad luck – in life, rather than on the tables. 

When his job in financial services was put on hold after the 2008 financial crisis, Sinclair decided he’d dedicate himself to poker and make a go of it. He moved into new digs in London and turned it into a poker house, inviting some other serious online grinders from the Twoplustwo forum to move in. “We played every day and studied in our spare time,” he says. “Living with other players is incredibly motivating. Everyone wants to be the best and have the best results.”

The housemates shared a backer who also ran group study sessions and Sinclair’s game improved “at an insane rate” during this time, even surpassing $100K in profit.

But things weren’t so smooth sailing away from the tables. Sinclair moved into a new apartment and paid a year’s rent upfront, only to discover upon moving in that he’d been lied to by the agents. There were no phone lines and he was unable to establish an internet connection, preventing him from playing online for the entire year he was stuck there. His backer dropped him, his confidence dipped, and he ultimately left the game behind.

A new career was needed and Sinclair put his software engineering background to good use. He found success building trading algorithms, but could never shake what might have been.

“I had overwhelming feelings that I never got to achieve what I really wanted to in poker,” he says. “Sure, I made some money, but I never won the big event or got to lift the big trophy.”

So just as he’d done years before, Sinclair once again devoted himself to the game – this time with a specific aim: play more live events, and then win one.

PokerStars and its Power Path was his first port of call. 

THE PATH TO SUCCESS

“I think the Power Path system is fantastic and gives players of all levels a great opportunity to win entries to big live events,” he says. “I regularly play the $11 Step 3s to try and qualify for the daily Step 4s.”

Sinclair not only captured a coveted Gold Pass worth $10,300, but he also won entry to the Estrellas Poker Tour (ESPT) entry in a €109 direct satellite. 

The flexibility of Power Path came in handy. “When I won the Gold Pass I had two package options,” says Sinclair. “One gave me entry to the EPT, ESPT, the Cup and some expenses. The other gave me my EPT Main buy-in and hotel for the week.”

Sinclair prioritised the latter option as it would be less admin on his end, but he also had his heart set on playing the ESPT too. “If I hadn’t won my entry, I would have chosen the first option,” he says. “But when I won the ESPT entry I was able to use my extra expenses to extend my hotel stay.”

The ESPT Main Event didn’t bear fruit, but today Sinclair is using his Gold Pass to play the EPT Barcelona Main Event. “I’m thrilled to be here,” he says. “It’s my first big holiday-slash-poker trip. The weather’s been good, everything is really professional, and I’ve got a lot of free merch.”

Having put in a ton of work on his game since poker came back into his life, Sinclair feels any rust he once had has now been well and truly scraped. “It feels like the general population is significantly better than they were eight years ago,” he admits. 

There’s one thing Sinclair is certain of: “I feel like I’m playing the best I’ve ever played.”

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COUCH TO €5K EPT STYLE

There’s a fairly well known fitness program called “Couch to 5K“, which aims to turn people who have never previously done much exercise into someone who can run 5km.

For Marcin Barański, a Polish poker player here at EPT Barcelona, his couch to 5K journey was slightly different.

“One evening I was laying on the couch and watching the EPT Monte Carlo event,” Barański says. “I thought that it would be cool to try a big event, so around a week later I registered to the €5.50 satellite on PokerStars and managed to grind through all three satellites consecutively on the first try.”

That’s it. Couch to €5K. It’s the perfect poker equivalent of the fitness regime, and it takes far less time.

Barański’s story actually has even greater overlap. The guiding ethos of the Couch to 5K training plan is to prove that anybody can get fit. It takes you on a steady journey from being the kind of person who simply wouldn’t dream of running into someone who can happily get through 5K.

The poker satellite path followed by Baranski to the EPT is the exact equivalent. He is an amateur poker player, who mainly plays low stakes online or at his local card club. He enjoys moderate success in both environments, but is never risking too much, so is never winning vast amounts either. Ordinarily, a €5K buy-in event is out of reach.

But by investing €5.50 and taking it step by step, here he is now at EPT Barcelona. The PokerStars satellite path is precisely a couch to €5K experience.

By day, Barański works in IT, and plays poker only in his spare time. But he’s continually trying to get better and watches poker broadcasts to learn how the pros do it. Of course, the standard of play in his local tournaments isn’t quite at EPT levels, but his introduction to higher stakes started very well today.

“I pretty much doubled up on the second hand,” Barański said. He added that he felt he had developed a good read on many of his opponents, and had noted that play was a good deal tighter than the free-for-all of the events he’s used to.

Regardless of the result here, he’s been enjoying his time in Barcelona. He’s travelled here with his girlfriend and they’re been exploring the city.

“Perhaps there’s some sort of a poker career waiting for me,” he says.

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TALBOT GOES BACK TO BACK IN POKERSTARS’ BIGGEST EVENTS

Parker “Tonkaaaa” Talbot pulled off an incredible feat today, making back-to-back final tables in the Estrellas Poker Tour (ESPT) Barcelona Main Event. That’s an impressive stat, even more so because they just happen to be the two biggest PokerStars-sponsored live tournaments ever held. 

This year’s €1,100 ESPT Main attracted 7,138 entries and the PokerStars Team Pro entered today’s final day second in chips. Unfortunately for Talbot his run ended his fourth place when his A♦ 10♠ was pipped by chip leader Martin Zamani’s 9♣ 7♣ , all-in pre-flop.

The run gives Talbot yet another huge score — €227,000, the latest in an ever-growing list of deep runs and big results that Talbot has recorded since becoming a PokerStars Team Pro in April 2021.

His stellar run began at EPT Prague in 2022 when he finished fifth in the Main Event for €278,450. That was the second time he’d been a Prague finalist, having placed sixth in 2018 for €179,360.

Talbot came close here in Barcelona in 2023, racking up a seventh-place finish in the Estrellas Barcelona Main Event for €105,590, the biggest event in terms of field size ever held under the PokerStars banner (7,398 entries). He then captured a fourth World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) title in one of the 2023 series’ biggest buy-ins – the $10,300 Super Tuesday – worth $213,228.

The Canadian then battled through an enormous field of 1,794 entries in the €2,200 France Poker Series (FPS) High Roller in Paris earlier this year, falling one spot short of the trophy, earning €334,180 for his runner-up finish. 

Talbot told us that the result felt like a monkey off his back (“I didn’t get a top-three finish for 11 consecutive years of live poker!”) but a major live win and trophy still eluded him.

That all changed at the Irish Poker Open in April when Talbot bested a 111-entry field in the €5K High Roller to win €134,279 and the cherished piece of silverware. “This is a big milestone for me, for sure,” he told us in Dublin.

Most recently, he had a runner-up finish in the PokerStars-sponsored $2,200 Maryland State Poker Championship for $73,719.

And here he is in Barcelona. Another huge event. Another great run.

But what happened after Talbot’s departure? Find out below.

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SYLVAIN BERTHELOT TOPS ENORMOUS ESTRELLAS MAIN

For a long time, it looked like American pro Martin Zamani was destined for the Estrellas Poker Tour (ESPT) Main Event title. He built a healthy chip lead throughout the final table thanks to a mix of strong, aggressive play and a bit of luck when it was required (see Talbot’s elimination). But when they got down to three it was actually France’s Sylvain Berthelot who held the chip lead.

Zamani, Bertherlot and Mexico’s Santiago Nadal paused play to discuss a deal, during which Zamani (with negotiating help from his friend Calvin Anderson) managed to lock up more than Bertherlot despite a slight chip disadvantage. The three left €45,100 to play for, but after losing a flip to double up Nadal and then finding himself all-in with a dominated ace, Zamani hit the rail in third for €463,250.

Heads up didn’t take long. Bertholot turned a flush with the same card that gave Nadal a straight and an all-in collision was unavoidable. Nadal finished runner-up for €394,526.

Before this event, Bartherlot, who lives in Lisbon, had only four live cashes under his belt, the biggest being  €3,650 from the EPT Monte Carlo Main in 2015. Yesterday he earned himself a staggering  €499,224, taking down one of the biggest events in PokerStars history.

“I can’t believe it,” Berthelot told PokerNews in a winner’s interview. “I need my friends to pinch me because it’s such a dream. I don’t have the words. I’m really happy. It’s. It’s an unbelievable sentiment. I can’t explain my feelings.”

Check out blow-by-blow coverage on PokerNews or look through the full results here.

Event 1: €1,100 ESPT Main Event
Dates: August 26-September 1, 2024
Entries: 7,138 (inc. 3,993 re-entries)
Prize pool: €6,852,480

RECORD REDEMPTIONS AS POWER PATH SECRET IS OUT

This time last year, the PokerStars Power Path was a relatively new innovation. Only seven people came to EPT Barcelona in August 2023 clutching a Gold Pass, which gave them a trip-of-a-lifetime to this magnificent city, plus their buy-in to the EPT Main Event.

One year on, has the Power Path taken off? Well, put it this way: this time 30 (THIRTY!) players are cashing in Gold Passes to play EPT Barcelona. That’s more than four times as many. The secret is well and truly out.

Let’s just reiterate the genius of the Power Path. This is a series of tournaments on PokerStars with incrementally increasing buy-ins. Step 1 costs just 50 cents. If you get on a good run, you can continue to play bigger and bigger, winning tickets to the larger buy-in events and eventually winning passes to major events, either live or online.

Typically, a Silver Pass earns a buy-in (plus expenses) to a regional tour event, such as the Estrellas Poker Tour. Meanwhile, a Gold Pass offers a full package to an event the size of the EPT. You get a €5K buy-in, accommodation in the Arts Hotel, plus travel expenses.

There are two other very important elements. Firstly, every day you play a real money hand on PokerStars, you’ll get a chest containing a Step 1 Power Path ticket. So you don’t even need to find the 50 cents if you don’t want to. Secondly, the highest stage at which anybody can buy in is the $11 level. There aren’t many predatory sharks who want to play $11 tournaments, guaranteeing the player pool is almost entirely recreational players.

That’s very much the target market. PokerStars wants its most exciting packages to go to the players who enjoy poker as a pastime rather than a profession.

And that’s precisely what has happened. Not only are there those 30 players using their Gold Passes to play the EPT Main Event, but there were also 146 players who exchanged a Silver Pass to enter the Estrellas Main Event. Both these are record-setting totals, the most Power Path representatives in any field.

It’s worth mentioning that the “traditional” qualifying path to the European Poker Tour is also still open. There are numerous satellite tournaments running frequently on PokerStars with full packages available to winners. There are 172 online qualifiers to the EPT Main Event, following on from 366 to the Estrellas Main Event.

This cohort has some very well established names among them including Boris Angelov, Enrico Camosci, Jerry Odeen, Jan-Eric Schwippert, Leonard Maue, Narcis Nedelcu and Arsenii Karmatckii. Some of those players have been dominating live and online for quite a while, but still recognise the value of playing satellites as a way of getting into the big tournaments for cheap.

As ever, we’ll try to catch up with as many online qualifiers as possible during the coming week. Their stories tend to be the most captivating, whether or not it ends in a big stack of cash.

YEAR-ON-YEAR POWER PATH COMPARISONS

Here’s how many players have qualified to EPT and Estrellas Barcelona via Power Path and traditional routes over the past two years.

EPT Barcelona 2024
Total qualifiers: 172
Traditional qualifiers: 142
Power Path Gold Pass: 30

EPT Barcelona 2023
Total qualifiers: 171
Traditional qualifiers: 164
Power Path Gold Pass: 7

ESPT Barcelona 2024
Total qualifiers: 366
Traditional qualifiers: 200
Power Path Silver Pass: 146

ESPT Barcelona 2023
Total qualifiers: 218
Traditional qualifiers: 169
Power Path Silver Pass: 45

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POWER PATH BRINGS FORMER PRO BACK AFTER 13 YEARS

The European Poker Tour is celebrating its 20th birthday here in Barcelona and there’s plenty of reminiscing going on. We’ve got memorable moments decorating the halls, the tour’s founder John Duthie battling in the Main Event, and there’s even a special EPT20 quiz hosted by James Hartigan taking place on Monday (Sep 2).

If there are any questions about the tour’s first eight years (SPOILER: There are – we wrote the questions) then Spain’s Pablo Ubierna could be of some help. He played professionally for 10 years and was a regular on the EPT throughout the tour’s infancy and early years, before leaving the game behind to become a data analyst. 

His last EPT event was in Madrid back in 2011, but now he’s back thanks to a Power Path Gold Pass worth $10,300 that he won on PokerStars. 

So what’s changed in the 13 years since?

“The number of players has increased for sure,” Ubierna says, observing the hundreds exiting the Main Event tournament room on break. “The aggressiveness of play has also increased. But mostly it’s the same, just people having fun playing poker.”

With more than $300K in live earnings and even more won online, Ubierna has a lot of poker knowledge in the bank. “I’ve played millions of hands online so in my mind I can still play, and I still enjoy it.”

Still, it wasn’t until a year ago that he decided to bring poker back into his life, focusing on playing satellites to live events online. “I just want to qualify for live events for fun,” he says. “I would love to travel the world and play the live circuit again.”

That’s exactly what Power Path is designed for.

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EPT AT 20 PODCAST

There’s a brand new episode of Poker In The Ears out, particularly relevant to those of you following the action from Barcelona.

James Hartigan and Joe Stapleton celebrate the 20th anniversary of the European Poker Tour with its founder John Duthie. In an extended interview, John talks about his journey into the television industry, discovering poker in the 1980s, winning the first-ever Poker Million, and seeing an opportunity to launch the EPT when the World Poker Tour didn’t live up to its name.

He also discusses some of the darker chapters in his life, and the business decisions he made that ultimately led to him losing control of the tour.

You can listen to the podcast here or below.

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THE EPT: EST. 2004

The European Poker Tour (EPT) Main Event is under way here in Barcelona, officially beginning the third decade of this outstanding tour’s existence. As you have no doubt heard, the first ever EPT took place in this very casino back in 2004, and we’re still here, 143 Main Events later.

The EPT branding team has done a fine job of advertising the tour’s legacy with some lovely banners lining EPT Barcelona’s hallways. Players arriving to the venue first walk past a wall celebrating “EPT 20 – EST. 2004 — TWENTY YEARS OF CHAMPIONS“, which features a timeline of some of the most memorable moments.

The next corridor is flanked with portraits of some of the players who have played an outsized role in the tour’s history. It starts with the first champion Alexander Stevic and progresses through to the brilliant Barny Boatman, whose victory in Paris earlier this year was so rightly revered.

Of course, there were far more moments than could fit on these physical banners, but we don’t have the same space restrictions here. So here’s a look at the words that appear on the EPT banners, including the entries that didn’t make the final cut.

EPT HISTORIC MOMENTS

2004

Stevic sets the EPT ball rolling
Nobody knew if it would work, but PokerStars tried it anyway: a poker tour through Europe to test the skills of an enthusiastic continent. It was an immediate and brilliant hit, as Sweden’s Alexander Stevic triumphed from a field of 229 players to bank €80,000 and become the EPT’s first champion.

2005

Schaefer shows the way for online qualifiers
Right from the start, PokerStars offered a way to play the EPT for cheap. Qualify online and get your buy-in and expenses paid. In Season 1, American Brandon Schaefer played a satellite for only a handful of FPPs. He got into EPT Deauville, he won it for €144K, then came second in the Monte Carlo Grand Final too

2005

Antonius begins march to Hall of Fame
He came 12th at the PCA in January, then third at EPT Barcelona. And then in Baden, a young and brilliant Finn named Patrik Antonius got his hands on a first major title and began one of modern poker’s most scintillating careers. By 2024, Antonius was a legend, and inducted to the Poker Hall of Fame.

2006

Home delights for Coren at the Vic
It seemed too good to be true: British journalist and broadcaster Victoria Coren became the first woman to win an EPT Main Event in her home city of London and at the casino seemingly named after her, the Vic. But this improbable EPT love affair was only just getting started…

2008

ElkY reigns supreme in Paradise
The EPT expanded all the way to the Bahamas, where it was France’s most famous son who became the Caribbean king. Bertrand to his mother, ElkY to everyone else, this former pro gamer turned Paradise Island into his personal playground with a spectacular PCA success.

2008

McDonald and Mercier break into the big time
The online tables were packed with the world’s best players, and they soon came marauding out of the shadows. Nobody knew Mike McDonald or Jason Mercier before they qualified to play on the EPT. But they were immediate champions, at 18 and 21, and superstars forevermore.

2011

Freitez angles into EPT Hall of Shame
Ivan Freitez won the only Grand Final to be held in Madrid, but his angle-shooting antics turned his fame into infamy. Freitez claimed his struggles with language were why he said “call” when he meant “raise” while he was holding the nuts. But he’d done it before, and his excuse fooled no one. (It didn’t halt his march to the title, however.)

2012

Denmark goes back-to-back-to-back
There was no defeating the Danes in early 2012 as Jannick Wrang followed Frederik Jensen who followed Mickey Petersen in winning titles in Campione, Madrid and Copenhagen. The hat-trick has never been done again – and the EPT has never been back to any of the locations. They remain reigning champions too.

2012

Barcelona lit up by sparkling Finns
Ilari Sahamies and Joni Jouhkimainen returned from a break at EPT Barcelona wearing some eye-catching new accessories: sparkly, sequinned hats, in shimmering gold and silver. As they exchanged the three-handed chip lead, they switched hats too – even though hatless Mikalai Pobal outdid them both for the win.

2013

O’Dwyer beats EPT’s toughest ever final
There were 531 entries to EPT Monte Carlo in 2013, but somehow all of Daniel Negreanu, Jason Mercier, Johnny Lodden and Jake Cody played their way to the last day. Only a true hero could beat such a star-studded line-up. Step forward Steve O’Dwyer, who won a first title from his fourth final table.

2014

Coren Mitchell ends EPT’s two-time hoodoo
There had been numerous near misses through nearly 10 full seasons, but the 100th EPT was imminent without anyone having ever won two. But after a spectacular last-day surge in Sanremo, Victoria Coren Mitchell finally laid the bizarre hoodoo to rest. The EPT’s first female winner became the first double champ as well.

2015

EPT hits 100; Mateos gets there for Spain
The EPT rolled into Barcelona for its landmark 100th festival, but still no one from Spain had ever raised the trophy. By the end of the 11th season, however, the drought had finally ended: Madrid native Adrian Mateos rose to the top in Monte Carlo and gave Spain its long-sought success.

2015

Ensan emerges and sets sights on World Championship
Hossein Ensan was 50 when he made his first EPT final table, and within 16 months he’d made two more and won the EPT Prague title. But this EPT hot streak was only the beginning. In 2019, Ensan won $10 million in Las Vegas and became the first player to win Main Events at the EPT and WSOP.

2016

Malec’s magic turns fanboy into champion
Young Polish upstart Sebastian Malec took Barcelona by storm and won the EPT’s greatest final hand. Desperate for a bathroom break, while also posing for selfies in the crowd, Malec coaxed an all-in call from Uri Reichenstein, who soon learned Malec had a flush. Malec took the title and the poker fanboy became a winner.

2018

A doctor and a driving instructor walk into a poker room…
It’s not always the pros who win on the EPT and in 2018 a holidaying doctor from Poland followed a Parisian driving instructor to the top of the prestigious podium. Piotr Nurzynski and Nicolas Dumont overpowered Barcelona and Monte Carlo, respectively. It was a profitable furlough from the day job for both.

2019

Pobal joins Coren Mitchell in two-time club
He might have been an underdog when he conquered Barcelona in 2012, but Mikalai Pobal had a champion’s swagger when he returned to an EPT final table seven years later in Prague. Once again, he did everything he needed and became only the second player to become a two-time EPT winner.

2020-21

Global pandemic sends EPT Online
With the world in lockdown and poker rooms closed, the EPT kept going via the online tables of PokerStars, where Sweden’s “WhatIfGod” proved unbeatable. The familiar tournament crusher won both EPT Online Main Events, a year apart, for a combined €1.2 million.

2023

EPT finds two new destinations, and a new Dutch hero
The EPT broadened its wings again, heading to Paris and Cyprus for the first time. And after making his name as a Twitch streamer and content creator, Gilles “Ghilley” Simon dared to dream an incredible new chapter with a crushing €1 million victory in Cyprus. In his words, “What a journey!”

2023

Enormous field is no match for Wiciak
EPT Barcelona hit a new attendance record in 2022, and one year later it got very close to matching it with a 2,120-entry field. Frenchman Simon Wiciak timed his arrival on the scene to perfection, earning €1.1 million for the win, and then a place on PokerStars Team Pro.

2024

Boatman rolls back the years in Paris
If poker is supposed to be a young man’s game, nobody told Barny Boatman. The wise-cracking, easy-going, 68-year-old Brit put on a performance for the ages, securing a new career high. He played in the first ever EPT 20 years before. Two decades later, he was just coming into his prime.

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PRIZE DRAW AT PLAYERS PARTY

The EPT20 Players Party in Barcelona just got even more unmissable.

PokerStars has announced that a prize draw for all EPT Barcelona players will take place during the festivities, awarding one lucky player a Las Vegas Gold Pass worth $10,000 that will send them to the North American Poker Tour (NAPT) event in November.

The Players Party takes place on Sunday, September 1st at the Go Beach Club, where the winner will be drawn at random on stage alongside DJ Kiko Rivera and PokerStars Ambassadors.

Trust us: this is an incredible prize. NAPT Las Vegas runs from November 1-10, 2024 at Resorts World, where there will be millions in prizes up for grabs over 10 thrilling days of poker action, plus the return of the popular TV show The Big Game On Tour. You and a guest could not only be there, but you could be in the centre of the action.

HOW TO WIN

If you’re already in Barcelona, there’s a good chance you‘re already entered in the prize draw. But here’s what you need to do to make sure you’re in the running:

• Entrants must have either played or be registered for an EPT Barcelona event
• Players can enter the prize draw at the info desks and PS Travel desks
• Players must link their PS Live accounts to apply
• You must be able to attend NAPT Las Vegas as the Gold Pass is non-transferable
• Entry to the prize draw closes at 8pm on August 31, 2024

Entry is open right now so head to the info/PS Travel desks and get in.

See you at the party.

Please note: There will also be a NAPT Gold Pass added to the prize pool of the €3K EPT Mystery Bounty event – this prize draw does not change that.

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ABOUT THE SERIES

It’s where it all began, way back in 2004.

PokerStars returns to Barcelona in August and September, where we’ll celebrate 20 years of the iconic European Poker Tour (EPT) at Casino Barcelona.

In its two decades, the EPT has been to some of the most iconic European destinations, including Monte Carlo, London, Berlin, Prague and Paris, hosting the best poker players from across the globe. Its numbers continue to grow year on year, with EPT Barcelona 2024 set to celebrate its landmark 20th year with another spectacular stop.

It all takes place from August 26 – September 8, 2024.

Stunning beaches. Vibrant nightlife. World-class cuisine. Barcelona has it all – making it a perfect stop for such a milestone celebration.

The EPT/ESPT Barcelona schedule boasts poker tournaments and cash games to suit players of all levels, as well as some of the best off-the-felt activities of any global tour.

Among the highlights is the PokerStars Players Party, where all participants and their guests are invited to join PokerStars Ambassadors in celebrating 20 years of incredible moments and memories with PokerStars. Entertainment will come from world-class DJs, with food and drink provided free of charge.

KEY EPT BARCELONA DATES

Key Estrellas Poker Tour (ESPT) and EPT Tournament dates.

ESPT:

ESPT Main Event: August 26-September 1 – €1,100

ESPT Cup: August 30-31 – €550

ESPT High Roller: August 31-September 2 – €2,200

EPT:

EPT Super High Roller: August 31-September 2 – €100,000

EPT Main Event: September 1-8 – €5,300

EPT Mystery Bounty: September 4-6 – €3,000

EPT High Roller: September 6-8 – €10,300

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STREAMING SCHEDULE

Sunday September 1

13:00 CEST

EPT BARCELONA: €100K SUPER HIGH ROLLER

PLUS €1K ESTRELLAS MAIN EVENT

*Monday September 2

13:00 CEST

EPT BARCELONA: €100K SUPER HIGH ROLLER – FINAL TABLE

Tuesday September 3

12:30 CEST

EPT BARCELONA: €5K MAIN EVENT – DAY 2

Wednesday September 4

12:30 CEST

EPT BARCELONA: €5K MAIN EVENT – DAY 3

Thursday September 5

12:30 CEST

EPT BARCELONA: €5K MAIN EVENT – DAY 4

Friday September 6

12:30 CEST

EPT BARCELONA: €5K MAIN EVENT – DAY 5

Saturday September 7

12:30 CEST

EPT BARCELONA: €5K MAIN EVENT – DAY 6

Sunday September 8

13:00 CEST

EPT BARCELONA: €5K MAIN EVENT – FINAL TABLE

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CELEBRATING 20 YEARS OF THE EPT

Since first getting started in Barcelona in September 2004, more than 100,000 players have contested the 143 EPT Main Events, with the tournaments offering more than €575 million in prize money.

EPT Main Event champions have come from 30 countries, winning more than €110 million between them.

EPT festivals now routinely feature more than 50 tournaments, in numerous variants and with buy-ins ranging from a few hundred euro through to the six-figure buy-in Super High Roller events.

Numerous players have graduated from the online tables of PokerStars to land great success on the EPT. Online satellite players frequently qualify to play in the biggest live tournaments for a fraction of the advertised buy-in, with many going on to become fixtures in the most prestigious games in poker.

PokerStars’ Power Path offers new players the chance to follow in these familiar footsteps and join the action at all PokerStars live events.

ALL-IN SHOOTOUTS: 20 SILVER PASSES TO BE WON

A total of 20 Silver Power Path bundles and hundreds of Bronze bundles will be awarded to players via exclusive All-In Shootouts, taking place during the ESPT Main Event.

Look out for the All-In Shootouts after the second break of each opening flight during the ESPT Main Event. They are free to enter – players simply need to link their PS Live Card to their online PokerStars account either in the PokerStars Live App or at the Sign Up desk. The winner of each All-In Shootout will receive an envelope containing a mystery Power Path prize, with two Silver Bundles guaranteed during each flight.

• $2,500 WCOOP Silver Bundle or €2,300 Galactic Series Silver Bundle
• $109 WCOOP Bronze Bundle or €100 Galactic Series Bronze Bundle

All players in Barcelona who have linked their PS Live Card to their online PokerStars account will also be invited to participate in exclusive All-In Shootouts taking place online after the event, where a further four Silver Power Passes will be awarded.

BARCELONA ACTIVITIES

The European Poker Tour’s imminent trip to Barcelona means a return to a familiar setting and a very welcome return for some of the most popular activities on the circuit.

Wherever the EPT goes, there’s plenty of fun to be had off the felt. But it’s especially good in Barcelona, where the casino is right beside the beach and the hills of Catalonia are only a short bus ride away.

This time, players and their guests can enjoy catamaran trips, padel tournaments and off-site activity days, as is now established for this stop, as well as a comedy night, a quiz night and several get togethers where on-felt adversaries can become friends.

Of course, it wouldn’t be the EPT without an incredible Players Party too, and this year, as the EPT celebrates its 20th anniversary, it’s going to be even better than usual.

Check out the full slate of EPT Barcelona Activities.

GUIDE TO THE CITY

The European Poker Tour (EPT) has been to 26 cities during its first two decades, but only one has featured every single year. No prizes for naming Barcelona as that most favoured destination: it’s where the whole thing started back in 2004, and where the 20th anniversary celebrations kick off at the end of this month.

But what’s so good about Barcelona? Why does the EPT keep coming back?

The simple answer is that everybody who goes there loves it, so you’d be better off asking any of the several thousand people who visit EPT Barcelona every year. The slightly longer answer is that this is the city that has absolutely everything any poker player or any tourist (or any poker-playing tourist) could possibly want.

Here’s where we take a look at all those things, and give you some ideas of what to look out for on your trip to Catalonia.

Check out the EPT Barcelona Need To Know Guide.

PREVIOUS WINNERS

2004 – Alexander Stevic (Sweden) – €80,000 (RECAP)

2005 – Jan Boubli (France) – €426,000 

2006 – Bjørn-Erik Glenne (Norway) – €691,000

2007 – Sander Lylloff (Denmark) – €1,170,700

2008 – Sebastian Ruthenberg (Germany) – €1,361,000 (RECAP)

2009 – Carter Phillips (USA) – €850,000

2010 – Kent Lundmark (Sweden) – €825,000 (RECAP)

2011 – Martin Schleich (Germany) – €850,000 (RECAP)

2012 – Mikalai Pobal (Belarus) – €1,007,550 (RECAP)

2013 – Tom Middleton (UK) – €924,000 (RECAP)

2014 – Andre Lettau (Germany) – €794,058 (RECAP)

2015 – John Juanda (Indonesia) – €1,022,593 (RECAP)

2016 – Sebastian Malec (Poland) – €1,122,800 (RECAP)

2017 – Sebastian Sorensson (Sweden) – €987,043 (RECAP)

2018 – Piotr Nurzynski (Poland) – €1,037,109 (RECAP)

2019 – Simon Brändström (Sweden) – €1,290,166 (RECAP)

2022 – Giuliano Bendinelli (Italy) – €1,491,133 (RECAP)

2023 – Simon Wiciak (France) – €1,134,375 (RECAP)

EVERYTHING ELSE

POKER NEWS LIVE UPDATES
Our live reporting partner will offer hand-by-hand updates from a number of tournaments across the series. We’ll link to their updates when the series begins.

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

FULL TOURNAMENT SCHEDULE
The full EPT Barcelona schedule is available 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
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