Pobal Wins EPT Prague for Second EPT Title

Written by Jennifer Newell

Last updated on December 16th, 2021

Affiliate Disclaimer Please note that some links on Legal US Poker Sites are affiliate links. We may receive a commission, at no extra cost to you, if you click through our links and make a purchase from one of our partners.

When the European Poker Tour (EPT) began in 2004, creator John Duthie couldn’t have imagined that it would still be alive today. PokerStars owns the tour and continues to keep it operating across Europe, now in its 15^th season.

As a part of the current season, the EPT Prague brought players to the Czech Republic from December 6-17, 2019. Nearly 50 tournaments, not to mention cash games and other activities, provided plenty for the players to do on and off the felt.

And while many players won sizeable amounts of money and prestigious titles, one player made EPT history. Mikalai Pobal of Hungary won the EPT Main Event, becoming the second player ever to win two EPT Main Event titles after Victoria Coren.

Brilliant Mikalai Pobal rewrites the record books and wins elusive second EPT title at #EPTPrague. https://t.co/6G0Z1dSGlK pic.twitter.com/7SqLWDxV3X

— PokerStars Blog (@PokerStarsBlog) December 17, 2019

EPT Main Event Action

Out of all of the tournament options at EPT Prague, the €5,300 buy-in Main Event was…well…the main event. It got underway on December 11 with 391 entries, and another 745 came in on Day 1B the next day. And when late registration closed when Day 2 began, the final numbers were:

Total entries:  1,154 (including 294 reentries)

Total prize pool:  €5,596,900

Total paid players:  167

Minimum payout:  €8,960

Day 2 brought back 395 survivors from the starting flights and a few new entries. The money bubble burst late that night, leaving 141 players to bag their chips.

Day 3 reduced the field to just 41 players. Day 4 saw the exits of players like Sylvain Loosli, Gaelle Baumann, Hossein Ensan, Day 1A chip leader Pierre Calamusa, and Day 3 leader Luigi Shehadeh.

Day 5 started with some quick eliminations, including Dominik Panka in 10^th place for €62,070. Dietrich Fast busted in eighth place, and the final five packed up to play the final day on December 17. Gaby Livshitz had the chip lead, and Mikalai Pobal was the second-lowest in chips.

On the final day of play, Norbert Szecsi battled Livshitz for the lead for hours. Tomas Paiva was the first to depart at the hands of Livshitz. Pobal was on a short stack for some time but did double through Livshitz twice to stay alive. Pobal then did it a third time to climb into the chip lead before eliminating Livshitz from the tournament in fourth place. Szecsi ousted Da Rocha in third place.

Szecsi took a lead into heads-up play with 18,385,000 chips against the 16,215,000 of Pobal. But the latter quickly took over the lead and ran away with it. Szecsi then pushed all-in with eights but found that Pobal had kings. The board changed nothing, and Pobal won.

Dreams Come True

Pobal became only the second EPT winner in its long history to capture a second EPT Main Event. He claimed his first title in Barcelona in 2012.

After that victory, per the PokerStars blog, Pobal fell away from poker, rarely playing live tournaments anymore. But when he won an online poker package on PokerStars for only €50, he decided to bring his family to Prague for a holiday.

It turned into a lucrative holiday, as Pobal won more than €1 million.

1^st place:  Mikalai Pobal (Belarus) – €1,005,600

2^nd place:  Norbert Szecsi (Hungary) – €598,880

3^rd place:  Ricardo Da Rocha (Brazil) – €421,450

4^th place:  Gaby Livshitz (Israel) – €316,780

5^th place:  Tomas Paiva (Portugal) – €241,230

6^th place:  Luke Marsh (UK) – €177,420

7^th place:  Laurent Michot (France) – €134,610

8^th place:  Dietrich Fast (Germany) – €96,100

https://twitter.com/PokerStarsLIVE/status/1207006724428881920?s=20

Greenwood Among High Roller Winners

EPT Prague was not short of high-stakes tournaments. Here are the final numbers of those tournaments with €10K or higher buy-ins and their respective final table players:

Event 1:  €10,300 NLHE Single Reentry

Entries:  61 (including 15 reentries)

Prize pool:  €591,700

1^st place:  Adrian Mateos (Spain) – €177,500

2^nd place:  Anton Yakuba (Russia) – €128,400

3^rd place:  Denis Ip (Hong Kong) – €82,840

4^th place:  Vladimir Troyanovskiy (Russia) – €62,720

5^th place:  Bertrand Grospellier (France) – €48,520

6^th place:  Tsugunari Toma (Japan) – €37,870

7^th place:  Orpen Kisacikoglu (Turkey) – €30,180

8^th place:  Arsenii Karmatckii (Russia) – €23,670

Event 8:  €25,000 NLHE

Entries:  28 (including 8 reentries)

Prize pool:  €672,280

1^st place:  Jean-Noel Thorel (France) – €248,740

2^nd place:  Ben Heath (UK) – €171,430

3^rd place:  Danny Tang (UK) – €109,250

4^th place:  Yuan Li (China) – €78,990

5^th place:  Sam Greenwood (Canada) – €63,870

Event 50:  €25,000 PLO Unlimited Reentry

Entries:  34 (including 12 reentries)

Prize pool:  €980,000

1^st place:  Bogdan Capitan (Romania) – €333,200

2^nd place:  George Wolff (US) – €230,300

3^rd place:  Franco Cantarella (Italy) – €147,000

4^th place:  Bryn Kenney (US) – €112,700

5^th place:  Massimiliano Zanasi (Italy) – €88,200

6^th place:  Martin Kabrhel (Czech Republic) – €68,600

Event 12:  €50,000 NLHE Super High Roller

Entries:  44 (including 14 reentries)

Prize pool:  €2,134,440

1^st place:  Stephen Chidwick (UK) – €725,710

2^nd place:  Bertrand Grospellier (France) – €501,590

3^rd place:  Adrian Mateos (Spain) – €320,170

4^th place:  Steve O’Dwyer (Ireland) – €245,460

5^th place:  Jean-Noel Thorel (France) – €192,100

6^th place:  Ben Heath (UK) – €149,410

The last four were money-list leaders in the UK, France, Spain and Ireland — and it was Stephen Chidwick who came out on top. Read how the British No 1 won €725,710 at #EPTPrague and became poker's highest earning European. https://t.co/d4lkrY6Rzb pic.twitter.com/s4iOm93mpc

— PokerStars Blog (@PokerStarsBlog) December 11, 2019

Event 18:  €10,300 6+ Short Deck

Entries:  7

Prize pool:  €67,900

1^st place:  Yake Wu (China) – €44,135

2^nd place:  Daniel Tang (UK) – €23,765

Event 21:  €10,200 NLHE Single Reentry

Entries:  41 (including 9 reentries)

Prize pool:  €397,700

1^st place:  Tsugunari Toma (Japan) – €135,220

2^nd place:  Kahle Burns (Australia) – €93,450

3^rd place:  Timothy Adams (Canada) – €59,660

4^th place:  Ludovic Geilich (UK) – €45,740

5^th place:  Yake Wu (China) – €35,790

6^th place:  Daniel Tang (UK) – €27,840

Congrats to Tsugunari Toma, he took down the #EPTPrague €10K High Roller, defeating a field of 255 entries to win €523,120. pic.twitter.com/YwfWbxEC9A

— PokerStars LIVE (@PokerStarsLIVE) December 18, 2019

Event 25:  €25,000 NLHE Single-Day Reentry

Entries:  50 (including 14 reentries)

Prize pool:  €1,200,500

1^st place:  Chin Wei Lim (Malaysia) – €378,160

2^nd place:  Jorryt van Hoof (Netherlands) – €273,120

3^rd place:  Matthias Eibinger (Austria) – €174,070

4^th place:  Timothy Adams (Canada) – €132,055

5^th place:  Jun Obura (Japan) – €102,040

6^th place:  Pavel Plesuv (Moldova) – €78,035

7^th place:  Yang Wang (China) – €63,020

The day's action has wound down at #EPTPrague.

Malaysia's Chin Wei Lim grabbed the title in the 25K Single-Day Super High Roller, while Belgium's Bart Lybaert leads the remaining cohort of Day 1B's 745 entries in the Main Event.

Full coverage:https://t.co/X5DT4Civjw pic.twitter.com/R1M0KVXxAX

— PokerStars Blog (@PokerStarsBlog) December 13, 2019

Event 33:  €25,000 NLHE Unlimited Reentry

Entries:  66 (including 23 reentries)

Prize pool:  €1,584,660

1^st place:  Sam Greenwood (Canada) – €384,968

2^nd place:  Steve O’Dwyer (Ireland) – €411,312

3^rd place:  Sam Grafton (UK) – €216,310

4^th place:  Jans Arends (Netherlands) – €163,220

5^th place:  Daniel Tang (UK) – €126,770

6^th place:  George Wolff (US) – €98,250

7^th place:  Matthias Eibinger (Austria) – €77,650

8^th place:  Mustafa Jukovic (Sweden) – €60,220