Manuel Ferrari Wins 2026 EPT Barcelona Main Event For €1,002,488

Manuel Ferrari celebrates winning the 2026 EPT Barcelona Main Event with his trophy and winning hand.

By Sandra Gaweda · Published August 31, 2026 · 6 min read

Manuel Ferrari of Italy won the 2026 EPT Barcelona €5,300 Main Event on August 29 for €1,002,488, his first EPT title.
The event drew 1,823 entries and an €8,841,550 prize pool, the seventh-largest EPT Main Event in the tour’s 22-year history.
Ferrari held the chip lead for the final three days and locked up most of his prize through a three-way ICM deal with Lukas van Eeden and Jose Criado.
The EPT runs through PokerStars, which operates legal, regulated online poker in Michigan, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.

A Breakthrough Run in Barcelona

Manuel Ferrari of Caldonazzo, Italy, won the 2026 PokerStars European Poker Tour Barcelona €5,300 No-Limit Hold’em Main Event at Casino Barcelona on August 29, 2026, banking €1,002,488 (about $1.16 million) for his first EPT title. The event pulled in 1,823 entries and built an €8,841,550 prize pool, making it the seventh-largest EPT Main Event in the tour’s 22-year history, with the top 271 finishers cashing. Ferrari held the chip lead for the final three days and went wire-to-wire. It was only his third EPT Main Event and his first-ever cash in the series.

How Ferrari Controlled the Final Three Days

Ferrari controlled the tournament from the front. He carried the chip lead into each of the last three days, and although van Eeden briefly edged in front during three-handed play before the deal, Ferrari controlled the tournament for nearly its entire run. Holding the lead that deep into a 1,823-entry field put Ferrari in control heading into the final stages.

The final day thinned out quickly. Spanish local favorite Jose Criado knocked out short-stacked Nicolas Chouity early, denying Chouity a second EPT title. Michael Dwyer of Ireland went out fifth, and China’s Xiaosheng Zheng followed in fourth. Three-handed, Lukas van Eeden of the Netherlands doubled up, the stacks nearly evened out, and the three remaining players agreed to a deal.

The Three-Way ICM Deal

Ferrari, van Eeden, and Criado struck a three-way ICM deal that locked up more than €900,000 for each player, leaving €100,000 and the trophy to play for. ICM, or the Independent Chip Model, converts chip stacks into real cash equity so players can split the remaining prize money fairly based on where they stand. Deals like this reduce each player’s financial risk when the remaining payouts are large and the stacks are relatively close.

After the deal, Criado lost a flip to Ferrari and busted in third. Heads-up lasted roughly 30 minutes. Van Eeden open-shipped king-six for about 20 big blinds, Ferrari called with ace-queen, and the board delivered him two pair to seal the title. If you want to understand the deep-run and short-stack spots that decide finishes like this, our guide to playing the tournament bubble breaks down the pressure points.

The eight-handed final table payouts, reflecting the three-way deal at the top, looked like this:

Place	Player	Country	Prize
1st	Manuel Ferrari	Italy	€1,002,488
2nd	Lukas van Eeden	Netherlands	€927,420
3rd	Jose Criado	Spain	€910,642
4th	Xiaosheng Zheng	China	€471,250
5th	Michael Dwyer	Ireland	€362,500
6th	Nicolas Chouity	Lebanon	€278,950
7th	Gerard Carbo	Spain	€214,600
8th	Edward Pak	South Korea	€165,050

Dutch pro Joris Ruijs finished 9th for €126,950 (about $147,262), busting on the final-table bubble just short of the eight-handed final table. It was his second straight 9th-place EPT Main Event finish of 2026, after EPT Paris.

A PokerStars Trifecta For A Mid-Stakes Regular

Ferrari normally competes at mid-stakes, which makes the run stand out. The Barcelona win gives Ferrari three major PokerStars-branded titles. He had already taken down the PokerStars Open Malaga Main Event in June 2025 for just over €200,000 and the PokerStars Open High Roller in Campione. This title puts a major on top of those results. It also shows how quickly a mid-stakes regular’s career can change with a deep run in one of poker’s biggest live tournaments.

The win carried real hardware in the season race, too. Ferrari earned 2,160 Card Player Player of the Year points, lifting him to 2,553 total and inside the top 100 of the 2026 POY standings.

Ferrari was still processing the win afterward. “I’m super, super happy,” he told PokerNews, adding that winning an EPT had been a dream of his since he was young.

The next and final EPT stop of 2026 runs in Prague from December 2 to 13, closing out the season at the Hilton Prague. Players chasing a seat there can look at satellite paths rather than buying in directly, and our rundown on qualifying for big tournaments lays out how those satellites work.

The US Poker Connection

For US players, the PokerStars connection is the most relevant part of Ferrari’s win. PokerStars operates regulated online poker in Michigan, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, where players have access to tournament poker on the same operator behind the EPT. PokerStars also uses online satellites as a route into major live events, giving qualifying players a path to tournaments they might not otherwise buy into directly.

Featured image: Manuel Kovsca / PokerStars

Sandra is a content writer and editor specializing in online poker and iGaming. She covers poker sites, game formats, industry news, and US online poker laws for Legal US Poker Sites.