Young Polish poker player Sebastian Malec managed to win the latest EPT Main Event that took place in Barcelona. The youngster faced Uri Reichtenstein heads-up and took home a prize of €1,122,800 after surviving a dramatic battle with him.
This was the player’s debut to the big poker scene, marking his largest victory so far, after outlasting a field of 1,785 entries. The players who took part in the event accumulated a prize pool of about €9 million distributed to the players who finished in the top 359 places.
Apart from winning the massive prize, Malec’s victory marks the end of the Barcelona poker festival in the current form of the European Poker Tour (EPT). The PokerStars organisers have revealed that the EPT is to be transformed in order to become a larger international tournament that will feature not only European stops.
So far, the EPT has been the largest and most popular poker festival on the territory of Europe. The tournament is to exist in its current form until the end of 2016. As its organisers revealed, from 2017 poker players from all over the world will be provided with the opportunity to take part in the new format of the competition, which is to be known as PokerStars Championship and will be available from a multiple select locations.
The final day of the event saw a total of not six, but seven players thanks to the late fold of Harcharan Dogra Dogra on Sunday night. As announced above, the young player from Poland won the €5,300 Main Event of the tournament after an 11-hour finale.
The Spanish player was the first to leave the final table of the competition. He went in the blind after Thomas de Rooij raised to 450,000 from the cut-off and Dogra Dogra had nothing to do. The German Uri Reichenstein led the final table of the main event, but unfortunately for him, he did not manage to keep his advantage for a long time. Later, when there were only four players left at the final table, the German regained his lead.
At this stage, the opportunity of a four-way deal for splitting the remaining prize pool depending on the players’ chip counts was also discussed. However, the players did not reach an agreement, so they continued playing until the 21-year-old Polish player was the only one standing.
Malec had to face Uri Reichenstein heads-up at the final battle for the tournament’s Main Event title. At the time of the last hand in play, Malec had the lead with 1.1 million in chips ahead of Reichenstein. At the end, he was granted with the victor’s title and the largest chunk of the prize pool.
Uri Reichenstein finished at the runner-up position, getting a total of €807,100. The third place was taken by the UK player Adam Owen, while Thomas De Rooij from the Netherlands occupied the fourth position with a payout estimated to €535,100.
Zorlu Er ranked 5th, while Andreas Chalkiadakis from Greece took a prize of €330,290 for his sixth place. The seventh position was taken by Harcharan Dogra Dogra, and Moldova-based player Pavel Plesuv ranked eight.
- Author
Harry Evans
