Adrian Mateos and Juan Pardo Among Early High Roller Champions

The 2023 PokerStars European Poker Tour Cyprus kicked off on Oct. 11, 2023. The enormous event competition is ready to host 59 tournaments, with the centerpiece of the entire collection being the $5,300 EPT Cyprus major occasion operating Oct. 16-22.

The competition has one thing for everybody, with buy-ins starting from as little as $330 all the way in which as much as a $50,000 tremendous excessive curler. The latter occasion is certainly one of a number of nosebleed stakes tournaments on the schedule. In the primary week of motion, there have already been 4 tournaments with buy-ins of $25,000 or increased which have performed all the way down to a champion. Below is a take a look at the outcomes from these high-stakes occasions.

EPT Cyprus $25,000 No-Limit Hold’em I

The first excessive curler on the agenda sported a $25,000 buy-in. The single-day occasion drew an enormous subject of 59 entries, making a prize pool of $1,416,590.

The final participant standing was Alexander Tkatschew, who earned $432,090 for the win. This was the primary recorded stay event title for the German and his second-largest rating. His high payday got here in 2021, when he completed third within the World Series of Poker Europe major occasion for $625,526. He now has almost $1.4 million in profession earnings after this massive win in Cyprus.

Tkatschew was joined on the closing desk by loads of massive names, together with bracelet winner and 2013 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure champion Dimitar Danchev (eighth), two-time bracelet winner and 2015 EPT Deauville champion Ognyan Dimov (seventh), rising high-stakes event star Biao Ding (sixth), 2022 Triton Coin Rivet Invitational champion Sam Grafton (4th), bracelet winner and 2021 EPT Sochi champion Artur Martirosian (third), and 2022 Triton Cyprus $100,000 buy-in occasion winner Teun Mulder (2nd).

Ding and Martirosian are actually among the many high 15 within the 2023 Card Player Player of the Year race, having made 15 and 13 closing tables to this point, respectively.

EPT Cyprus $25,000 No-Limit Hold’em II

The second $25,000 buy-in occasion of the collection was held the very subsequent day, with 29 entries constructing a $696,290 prize pool that was break up among the many high 5 finishers. This time round it was Paulius Plausinaitis who emerged victorious with the title.

As with Tkatschew, Plausinaitis was additionally posing for his first stay event winner photographs after this occasion. The $264,690 he secured for the win was his largest recorded rating but, stopping the $241,326 he earned for a runner-up exhibiting in a €2,700 aspect occasion at EPT Barcelona earlier this 12 months. He now has almost $795,000 in lifetime earnings.

Martirosian backed up his third-place end within the first excessive curler with a runner-up exhibiting this time round, including one other $170,600 and 210 POY factors. With 4,921 whole factors and $6,948,151 in to-date POY earnings, the Russian professional is now twelfth on the POY leaderboard introduced by Global Poker.

Bracelet winners Leon Sturn (third) and Alex Kulev (4th) additionally cashed.

EPT Cyprus $50,000 No-Limit Hold’em

The $50,000 excessive curler, the most important buy-in occasion of the competition, attracted 46 entries to construct a $2,231,460 prize pool that was break up among the many high six finishers. The largest share of that sum was finally snagged by Spain’s Juan Pardo, who struck a heads-up take care of Vicente Delgado that noticed him awarded the title and $688,560.

Delgado earned $583,400 because the runner-up.

This was the third-largest stay rating on Pardo’s resume. His high win noticed him take down a €50,000 occasion on the 2019 EPT Barcelona for greater than $1.1 million. He now has almost $9.4 million in recorded cashes.

Sturm, Grafton, and Mulder every recorded their second final-table finishes of the competition by making the cash on this occasion.

EPT Cyprus $25,000 No-Limit Hold’em III

The third $25,000 buy-in of the competition drew a smaller turnout of simply 16 entries. That resulted in $384,160 to play for, with simply 4 gamers cashing. Four-time bracelet winner and 2015 EPT Grand Final champion Adrian Mateos got here out on high in the long run, incomes $157,946 and his twenty fourth recorded event title.

Mateos additionally secured 168 POY factors for the win. This was his second title and thirteenth final-table end of the 12 months, with almost $5 million in POY earnings accrued as he’s gone. With 3,978 whole factors, he now sits in twenty fourth place within the 2023 POY standings.

Giia Iakobishvili was the runner-up, incomes $110,964. Pardo managed a third-place end after profitable the $50,000 occasion earlier the identical day, including $69,150 to his tally. Two-time bracelet Aleksejs Ponakovs positioned fourth for $46,100.

Photos credit: Rational Intellectual Holdings Ltd. / Danny Maxwell, Manuel Kovsca.