Huge names land huge prizes as EPT Monte Carlo festival gets into full swing
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The EPT Monte Carlo schedule this year seems to be front-loaded in favour of the high rollers. That’s not to say there aren’t events going on in the Salles des Etoiles and its environs that don’t suit all bankrolls. It’s just that the continent’s most prestigious poker tour has also laid out the red carpet to the players who like their eyes to water when they buy in.
And those highest rollers have duly shown up.
At the time of writing, the €250K Super High Roller is taking place. That’s the highest buy-in event a PokerStars festival has seen for quite a while. But so many players from the high roller scene have already been making waves in Monaco even before the six-figure buy-ins arrived.
Leon Sturm, Eelis Parssinen, Andras Nemeth, Mikalai Vaskaboinikau and Dejan Kaladjurdjevic have all already picked up Spadie trophies from this trip, with the likes of Mikita Badziakouski, Adrian Mateos, Dimitar Danchev, Dario Sammartino, Bernhard Binder and Enrico Camosci finding podium finishes behind them.
STURM GETS THE 1-2
Take a look at the full results from EPT Monte Carlo so far, but here’s a quick summary of the highlights to this point.
You’ve already read about Albert Daher beating Stephen Chidwick to first place in the €100K One Drop event, and are no doubt aware of Joris Ruijs overcoming a field of 1,634 to take down the PokerStars Open Main Event, with Leon Sturm in second.
But by the time Sturm sat down to play the PokerStars Open, he was already a champion, having raced to the title in the €10,200 NLH Mystery Bounty event. Sturm won €60,700 from the main prize pool in that one and added a further €32,500 in bounties. That brought his total prize to more than €93K, and set him up very nicely for the week, even before his €275,042 score after chopping the monster with Ruijs.
Leon Sturm is in great form
Austria’s latest poker sensation Bernhard Binder took second behind Sturm in the Mystery Bounty, with superstars occupying all five in-the-money positions. Live League crusher Enrico Camosci was third, Dutch all-rounder Tom Vogelsang was fourth, and Aleksandr Shevliakov, last year’s EPT Monte Carlo Main Event champ, was fifth.
Ten thousand euros was also the asking price for a seat in a Hyper Turbo freezeout running on Saturday night, where the UK’s Benjamin Philipps saw off the challenge of former PCA winner Dimitar Danchev and WSOP Main Event runner-up Dario Sammartino.
This was a small but exceptionally tough field, even before factoring in the hectic nature of a hyper turbo. But Philipps was strong enough to pick up the €72,700 first prize.
MONTENEGRO’S MYSTERY MAN COMES TO THE PARTY
It was even more intense a day later, when the first €50K Single Day NLH event played out. In this one, 31 players contributed 43 entries to put more than €2.1 million in the prize pool. The final stages were predictably star-studded, with Dejan Kaladjurdjevic pushing Mikita Badziakouski, Adrian Matos, Tom Orpaz, Joao Vieira and Matthias Eibinger into second through sixth positions.
Dejan Kaladjurdjevic has emerged from behind the screen-name
Kaladjurdjevic first came to our attention in 2021 when, as “dejanlc357” online, he won three SCOOP titles — the first ever won by anyone from his native Montenegro. He’s now more regularly to be seen on the High Roller circuit, where he’s amassed close to $5 million in winnings. However, this was his first ever outright live tournament win.
At the other end of the buy-in scale, the €825 PokerStars Open Cup attracted its customary enormous field. There were 1,196 entries, including 438 re-entries, and somehow they got it done in two days. Italy’s Illuminato Torrisi landed this one, earning €146,250. It was seven times his previous biggest win.
PLO WIZARDS DOMINATE THE FOUR-CARD GAME
All of the above were no limit hold’em tournaments, but Omaha players have been very well served in Monte Carlo as well. The four-card events have also tended to favour players well known from the online game, with Andras “probirs” Nemeth winning the €10,200 6-Max PLO for €168,900 and Eelis “EEE27″ Parssinen taking down the €5,200 version, for €98,950.
Eelis Parssinen getting to the bottom of it
Mikalai Vaskaboinikau has made a habit of upsetting the pros in high roller events, and the Belarusian businessman did it again in the $15K PLO, coming out on top of a 54-entry field. This event finished with the lesser-seen five way even chop, with each of Vaskaboinikau, Youness Barakat, Tom Vogelsang, Joni Jouhkimainen and Espen Myrmo landing €131,460 apiece.
Gergo Nagy bust in sixth for €50,624 and then the rest of them split what was remaining of the €777,924 prize pool.
Mikalai Vaskaboinikau with the PLO success
There were no such shenanigans at the conclusion of the biggest PLO event on the schedule, however, where another PLO expert Dennis Weiss prevailed. This was the €30,000 PLO 6-Max High Roller, which attracted 28 entries. Weiss, a two-time WSOP bracelet winner in PLO events, got his hands on a first Spadie along with a €351,640.
Dennis Weiss is a PLO force
He beat Norway’s Erik Nordstrand heads-up and actually made up for his own earlier disappointment. Weiss finished second to Nemeth in the earlier €10K PLO event.
DECOUT LANDS FIRST WIN
In other news, there was another fine turnout in the Women’s Event, with 86 entries to the €330 buy-in tournament. France’s Marion Decout bettered her career high to this point when she earned €6,610 for the win. Meanwhile Tahar Said and Jose Pimentel bagged a hyper turbo freezeout apiece on Thursday night and Friday night, respectively.
Marian Decout took down a first event of her career
FOLLOW THE ACTION IN OUR EPT MONTE CARLO COVERAGE HUB
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