The biggest-ever PokerStars-sponsored EPT Prague Main Event has come to a close, with 1,267 players coming together to create a prize pool of €6,144,950, the biggest one paid out in the Czech Capital to date.
When the dust settled, Canadian Jordan Saccucci took down the incredible €913,250 first place prize after defeating 2017 WSOP Main Event final tabelist Antoine Saout in the heads-up battle.
This was the first EPT title to go to Canada since Mike Watson won it all at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure in 2016, and the first one won on European soil since 2011.
The newly crowned champion started playing poker in 2016, cashing several WPT events in Canada before traveling the world to enter events in the Caribbean, Spain, the USA, and the Czech Republic.
This is only the third live tournament win in the Canadian champion’s career, the last one coming in 2017 in a $500 side event at the partypoker Caribbean Poker Party.
However, the €913,250 score will go down as the biggest one of Saccucci’s career to date, as his career total rises to $1,392,996. This should allow the newly crowned EPT champion even more opportunities to get involved with live poker tournaments and possibly boost his career to new heights.
International Final Table at EPT Prague
We are used to the fields at the EPT being quite diverse. Still, this year’s EPT Prague Main Event was truly an international affair, with Canada being the only country to have two representatives at the final table, the other being PokerStars’ own Parker Talbot, who busted out in fifth place.
Along with Saccucci, Saout, and Talbot, Hungarian Istvan Pilhofer, Japanese Jun Obara, Italian Luigi D’Alterio, Bulgarian Petar Kalev, Spaniard Javier Gomez, and Romanian Paul-Adrian Covaciu made up the final nine players at the event.
The action was as wild as ever on EPT final tables, and all players were guaranteed at least €97,450 for their efforts, a significant return on their €5300 initial buy-in.
Of course, all eyes were on the prize of nearly a million euros. Only four players actually returned for the final day of the action, with the previous day coming to a close with Parker Talbot’s elimination in fifth.
Japan’s Jun Obara was the first to go out when the play restarted, as his KcJd was not good enough to beat Saccucci’s pocket kings on a jack-high board. Obara was the short stack coming into the day and took home €361,950 — much more than a consolation prize.
Pilhofer and Saout were left with pretty even stacks at this point. Despite the Hungarian playing a fantastic tournament and even correctly folding QQ preflop, he could not survive an A9 vs. 22 coin flip, which sent him to the rail with €470,500 in his pocket.
The two remaining players made a deal, with €800,000 going to each and an extra €113,250 left to play for. Eventually, it was Saout’s 66 that was well ahead of Ad3c of Saccucci, but a couple of threes on the board meant the title would go to Canada this time around.
What’s Next for EPT?
PokerStars has recently released a full schedule for the 2023 season of EPT, with several new exciting stops added to the roster and many popular events like EPT Prague coming back in the New Year.
Poker players will get their first chance at EPT action as early as February, as the Tour goes to a new location in Paris between February 15 and 26, with the traditional spring slot reserved for EPT Monte Carlo, between April 26 and May 6.
Summer is the best time to play poker in seaside locations, which is probably why PokerStars scheduled EPT Barcelona from August 21 to September 3, allowing everyone to enjoy the beaches and get involved with hot poker action as well.
Players will have another chance at EPT glory at EPT Cyprus, which will play out between October 11 and 22 before the action finally returns to Prague on December 6 for a makeover of this year’s incredibly successful event.
2023 promises to be one of the best years for live poker in recent history, with EPT and other live tours offering a rich roster of events around the globe.
For more about PokerStars’ live and online tournaments, head to our comprehensive PokerStars Review.
