EPT Monte Carlo: The springboard to great success
Monte Carlo is known across the world as one of the glitziest places on the planet. It’s the billionaire’s playground, the home of sports stars and glitterati. It prides itself on sky-high prices and favourable tax arrangements. Only the crème de la crème need apply.
But even people who pass these qualification requirements had to start somewhere. And for many poker players who have once passed through Monte Carlo, it was their work in the Principality that actually started them on a path to stardom — or, at least, gave them a tremendous leg up.
O’DWYER TAKES HUGE LEAP IN MONACO
It would be wrong to categorise Steve O’Dwyer as a total newbie when he stepped into La Salle des Étoiles to play the 2013 EPT Main Event. He had already made two EPT final tables, as well as two on the WPT, and was a leading light in a cadre of US-based pros who had built their bankrolls online.
But at the same time, O’Dwyer was not yet the ultimate tournament crusher he soon became.
Steve O’Dwyer battled through the toughest ever final table
As EPT fans are already well aware, O’Dwyer ended up champion in 2013, beating what remains the toughest eight-handed final table in large-field tournament poker history. There were 531 entries and a final that featured Jason Mercier, Daniel Negreanu, Noah Schwarz, Jake Cody and Johnny Lodden, among others. O’Dwyer crushed them all for a €1.224 million payday.
That was his biggest tournament score at the time, and the first time he’d earned seven figures. It remains in his top five career tournament scores, but over the decade that followed his EPT Monte Carlo triumph, O’Dwyer became a high-stakes behemoth. It set him up to blaze a trail as one of tournament poker’s very best.
MATEOS CONTINUES SIZZLING CAREER START
Two years later, it was a similar story for the sensation that is Adrian Mateos.
The man from Madrid blazed onto the poker scene in late 2012, and by 2013 he already had a first major title, earned on the Estrellas Poker Tour in his home city. Ten months later, he had his first WSOP bracelet, picking up the WSOPE Main Event in Paris at only 19.
Mateos was clearly one to watch, but the prodigy firmly booked his place among the greats when he took down the EPT Monte Carlo Main Event in May 2015. The €1.082 million first prize was a new career high, and he remains the only Spanish player ever to win an EPT Main Event.
Adrian Mateos was already well on the way to stardom
Within little more than two more years after his EPT success, he had another couple of WSOP bracelets. At time of writing, his career earnings sit at more than $55 million, and his name is regularly brought up when discussing the best hold’em tournament players in the world.
EPT Monte Carlo was a major moment in Mateos’ career.
“Monaco is always a special place for me,” Mateos told PokerStars Blog, on the 10th anniversary of his triumph last year. “I won my first Main Event here, but I’ve also won many High Rollers. It’s somewhere I’ve won a lot of money, and I have many good memories, so it feels amazing to be back.”
YOUNG GUNS SET THE TONE
Mateos is not the only young gun who has found Monte Carlo to be a happy hunting ground. Back in 2006, with the online poker boom only just really igniting, 19-year-old Jeff Williams from Georgia, USA, became one of the first online phenoms to transfer his skills into the live environment.
The baby-faced Williams wowed everyone — particularly poker’s establishment — as he shook up the old guard with his €900K win. Achievement like Williams’ became commonplace over the next decade, with “online qualifier” becoming a label to be feared rather than derided on the EPT.
Mohsin Charania was another North American pro who dominated in Monaco
Gavin Griffin the following year, then Glen Chorny in 2008, Nicolas Chouity in 2010 and Mohsin Charania in 2012 were all cast from the same mould. They were online tournament specialists who found a way to prosper in the live environment too.
THE HOME OF CAREER HIGHS
For the first 10 renewals of the EPT Monte Carlo Main Event, the buy-in sat at €10,000, a significant increase on the rest of the EPT calendar. It set the Grand Final apart and brought an added level of prestige.
The result was slightly smaller fields but enormous prize pools. Pieter de Korver’s victory over a field of 935 entries in 2009 earned him €2.3 million. It’s still the biggest single prize earned by the winner of an EPT Main Event.
These vast prize pools, alongside Monte Carlo’s tendency to find winners near the start of their careers, are the factors that combine to produce one of this tournament’s most compelling facts.
Namely, every Monte Carlo Main Event champion from 2005 through 2018 recorded a new career high with their win. It wasn’t until Manig Loeser won in Monte Carlo in 2019 that a champion had a higher tournament score already on their resume.
Even now, Loeser is one of only two players for whom triumph in Monte Carlo did not represent a new career high. (Mike Watson, winner in 2023, had plenty of bigger scores.)
WHO’S NEXT?
What this means for anyone hoping to predict this year’s champion is unclear. While Monte Carlo has definitely proved to be a breeding ground for some future greats, it’s also been a fairly good place for the recreational player, particularly more recently.
Driving instructor Nicolas Dumont secured a famous against-the-odds win in 2018. He’d never previously won more than €8,000 in any event.
Nicolas Dumont beat all the pros in 2018
Brazil’s first ever EPT champion was not one of the South American country’s hordes of young whizzes, rather it was 55-year-old journeyman Marcelo Mesqueu, who won in Monte Carlo in 2022.
It’s only been two years since Dutch semi-pro Derk Van Luijk emerged from the shadows to claim a victory that still represents more than two thirds of his entire poker earnings.
With a diverse field expected once again, Monte Carlo could yet throw up another surprise. All the more reason to watch closely when action in the Main Event gets started on Monday.
Further reading
All you need to know about EPT Monte Carlo
Monte Carlo activities guide
Official EPT site
EPT photo gallery
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