It had been nearly three years since the European Poker Tour hosted its famous EPT Monte Carlo series. But the post-pandemic return of live poker brought poker players from around the world to compete at Sporting Monte-Carlo in Monaco. PokerStars put its EPT together with FPS (France Poker Series) for the schedule, and it was a hit.
Altogether, EPT Monte Carlo ended with these numbers:
-Total number of tournaments: 33-Total entries: 8,476-Total prize money awarded: €29,145,940
The FPS Main Event kicked off the entire series by setting a record with 1,918 entries and a prize pool exceeding €1.8M. The EPT Main Event, with a much larger buy-in, still brought in 1,073 entries to send the prize pool past €5.2M. That didn’t set a record but came close.
Another highlight of the series was Neymar Jr. in attendance. He cashed in the FPS Main Event and the FPS High Roller, boosting his Hendon Mob results from one to three.
And speaking of Neymar’s presence, it meant quite a lot to one EPT winner. Lucas Scafini of Brazil won the FPS Main Event. The €250K first-place prize was the largest score of his poker career, but that became even more of a special moment when fellow Brazilian Neymar saw Scafini’s win from another table, got up, and went over to congratulate Scafini.
A list of all of the winners, fields, and prize pools is as follows:
Winners
EPT Monte Carlo 2022
Entries
Prize Pool
Event 1
Lucas Scafini (Brazil)
€ 1,100
FPS NLHE Main Event
1,918
€ 1,841,280
Event 4
Jean-Noel Thorel (France)
€ 10,200
NLHE Mystery Bounty
83
€ 805,100
Event 5
Dominykas Karmazinas (Lithuania)
€ 550
NLHE Hyper Turbo Freezeout
105
€ 50,400
Event 8
Takahiro Kanai (Japan)
€ 1,050
NLHE Hyper Turbo Knockout
97
€ 93,120
Event 10
Pierre Morin (France)
€ 550
8-Game Mix
46
€ 22,080
Event 11
Yuri Martins Dzivielevski (Brazil)
€ 25,000
NLHE
74
€ 1,776,740
Event 12
Manig Loeser (Germany)
€ 550
FPS Cup NLHE
906
€ 178,560
Event 14
Dimitar Yosifov (Bulgaria)
€ 2,100
NLHE Hyper Turbo Knockout Freezeout
118
€ 226,560
Event 16
Pascal Mouysset (France)
€ 2,200
FPS NLHE High Roller
861
€ 1,653,120
Event 17
Adrian Mateos (Spain)
€ 100,000
EPT NLHE Super High Roller
42
€ 4,074,840
Event 19
Nicolas Vayssieres (France)
€ 1,050
NLHE Hyper Turbo Freezeout
130
€ 124,800
Event 21
Marcelo Simoes Mesqueu (Brazil)
€ 5,300
EPT NLHE Main Event
1,073
€ 5,204,050
Event 22
Andres Korn (Argentina)
€ 1,100
NLHE Seniors
186
€ 178,560
Event 24
Igor Pihela (Estonia)
€ 1,050
NLHE Hyper Turbo Knockout Freezeout
214
€ 205,440
Event 26
Pascal Lefrancois (Canada)
€ 50,000
NLHE
34
€ 1,649,340
Event 27
Laurent Cessy (France)
€ 1,650
PLO
121
€ 174,240
Event 29
Emin Aghayev (Azerbaijan)
€ 2,100
NLHE Hyper Turbo Knockout Freezeout
149
€ 286,080
Event 31
Marius Gierse (Germany)
€ 25,000
NLHE
61
€ 1,464,610
Event 32
Lautaro Guerra (England)
€ 5,200
PLO
56
€ 271,600
Event 34
Pedro Marques (Portugal)
€ 3,000
NLHE Second Chance Mystery Bounty
497
€ 1,349,852
Event 35
Iraj Parvizi (United Arab Emirates)
€ 10,150
NLHE Hyper Turbo Knockout Freezeout
43
€ 417,100
Event 36
Gianluca Speranza (Italy)
€ 25,000
EPT NLHE High Roller
179
€ 4,297,790
Event 38
Laurent Manderlier (Belgium)
€ 550
HORSE
53
€ 25,440
Event 39
Julien Sitbon (France)
€ 2,200
NLHE Freezeout
192
€ 368,640
Event 40
Leonardo Parmiggiani (Italy)
€ 550
NLHE Deep Stack
391
€ 187,680
Event 41
Imad Derwiche (France)
€ 1,050
NLHE Hyper Turbo Freezeout
126
€ 120,960
Event 42
Jon Gurrutxaga (Spain)
€ 2,200
NLHE Deep Stack
190
€ 364,800
Event 43
Seth Davies (USA)
€ 25,000
NLHE
40
€ 960,400
Event 44
Laurent Azoulay (France)
€ 2,100
NLHE Hyper Turbo Knockout Freezeout
100
€ 192,000
Event 45
Antonio Bozzo (Italy)
€ 330
NLHE
161
€ 46,368
Event 46
Alexandre Landron (France)
€ 2,100
NLHE 6-Handed
120
€ 230,400
Event 47
Stephen Chidwick (England)
€ 5,200
NLHE 6-Handed
51
€ 247,350
Event 48
Endre Tangenes (Norway)
€ 1,050
NLHE Last Chance Super Hyper Turbo
59
€ 56,640
Brazilian Scores Main Event Win
The EPT Main Event was a potpourri of players from around the world. In fact, its participants hailed from 55 different countries and nations. As proximity would have it, France had the most entries with 28.8% of the field, with Italy second with 9.4% and then Germany with 7.2%. Brazil had only 3% of the field with its 19 players, but they made their mark.
https://twitter.com/PokerStarsLIVE/status/1522892993086332929?s=20&t=Uqb8kkonuOmCOSSFb2vgjg
Of the final six players at the final table, Morten Hvam of Denmark had the chip lead with 7.35M of them, but Marcelo Mesqueu of Brazil was second with 6.89M. Mesqueu started strong and took over the top spot on the leaderboard. He lost some ground but then soared to an almost unreachable lead of 16M chips.
Hours and (nearly eight) hours later, Mesqueu ousted Erkan Soenmez of Germany in sixth place and then Hugo Pingray of France in fifth. Hvam stepped in to send Jaime Cervantes of the United States to the rail in fourth place. Mesqueu took down a big pot against Hvam that eliminated Dragos Trofimov of Moldova in third place.
Heads-up play started with Mesqueu dominating with nearly four times the stack of Hvam. Mesqueu only increased his lead further, and Hvam had only 13 big blinds left to work with. Hvam did score a double-up, so he went for it again soon after. Hvam put it all at risk with K-T on a 6-9-7 flop, but Mesqueu called quickly with pocket kings. The 5 turn and J river changed nothing, and Mesqueu won the EPT Main Event. It was his largest score ever to win €939,840.
https://twitter.com/PokerStarsLIVE/status/1523325066796093440?s=20&t=Uqb8kkonuOmCOSSFb2vgjg
