Leo Worthington-Leese Wins European Poker Tour Cyprus Eureka Main Event

The 2024 European Poker Tour Cyprus cease kicked off with a bang. The $1,100 buy-in Eureka Poker Tour no-limit maintain’em fundamental occasion that sat on the prime of the schedule drew a large turnout of two,803 complete entries, leading to a prize pool of practically $2.7 million.

After six beginning flights and three extra days of combined-field motion, the United Kingdom’s Leo Worthington-Leese was topped the champion. The Brighton, England resident walked away with $314,030, which was the second-largest rating of his profession. His prime payday stays the $425,272 he secured because the third-place finisher in final 12 months’s EPT Monte-Carlo fundamental occasion. He now has greater than $1.5 million in recorded event scores to his identify.

This victory additionally earned Worthington-Leese 1,200 Card Player Player of the Year factors. This was his second title and sixth final-table end of the 12 months. With 2,290 complete factors, he now sits inside the highest 125 within the 2024 POY standings offered by Global Poker.

The prime 418 finishers made the cash on this occasion, with large names like Victoria Livschitz (81st), 2020 World Series of Poker Online fundamental occasion champion Stoyan Madanzhiev (sixty fourth), two-time bracelet winner Alexandre Reard (53rd), two-time bracelet winner Michael Wang (51st), two-time bracelet winner Martin Zamani (thirty ninth), Marle Spragg (thirty fifth), and _WPT and EPT champion Andrey Pateychuk (14th).

The last day started with eight gamers remaining and Yuan Xu on prime of the leaderboard. Worthington-Leese sat in sixth chip place to start out, however was just a few large blinds away from being inside the highest three.

Alexey Badulin misplaced a basic preflop race to complete eighth ($46,600), together with his A-J shedding in opposition to the pocket tens of Aleksandr Razinkov. Frederick Anastasiades was then in a position to overcome the pocket fours of Recep Aydemir (seventh – $60,850) with A-9 to slender the sector to 6.

Guoliang Wei referred to as off his final handful of blinds with 10-6 suited dealing with a small-blind shove from Samuel Fournier, who held A-J. Neither participant related with the board and Wei was despatched packing in sixth place ($78,770). Fournier then picked up pocket aces in opposition to the pocket nines of Xu and flopped aces full after the entire chips went in preflop to finish Xu’s run in fifth place ($101,390).

Razinkov was the subsequent to fall. He shoved from the small blind with Ok3 and obtained a fast name from Anastasiades, whose A9 made a successful two pair by the river. Razinkov was awarded $132,120 for his efforts.

The last three agreed to a deal to redistribute the remaining prize cash, leaving the trophy and $79,957 put aside for the eventual winner. After that was hashed out, Worthington-Leese shoved from the small blind with 109 and was regarded up by Fournier and his pocket fives out of the massive blind. Worthington-Leese flopped a 9, turned a ten, and held from there to ship Fournier to the rail with the $237,051 he negotiated for.

The subsequent large conflict pitted pocket sevens for Anastasiades in opposition to the pocket queens of Worthington-Leese. The bigger pocket pair held up and Anastasiades was left with simply a few large blinds remaining in his stack.

The last hand noticed Anastasiades shove with Ok2. Worthington-Leese referred to as from the massive blind with J3 and the board got here down 75496 to offer Worthington-Leese a seven-high straight on the top. With that he locked up the title, whereas Anastasiades was eradicated in second place ($248,479).

Here is a have a look at the payouts and POY factors awarded on the last desk:

Photo credit: Rational Intellectual Holdings Ltd. / Danny Maxwell.