It was the end of an era, as they say, but then all good things come to an end.
It was also a worthy finale as the biggest main event in EPT Prague history found an emotional end.
The last main event title ever awarded on the European Poker Tour went to Dutch player Jasper Meijer van Putten who made a deal heads-up with Czech player Marton Czuczor.
An extra €50,000 was left to play for which gave van Putten €699,300 for his victory and Czuczor €630,000 for runner-up. But plenty of other remarkable things happened over the course of the ultimate EPT as well, though, as you'll see below.
Cohen, Peters in Spotlight for Final
The final EPT main event drew 1,192 players, making it the largest one ever played in the Czech capital. This also answered the question of whether the EPT had lost traction after its end was announced.
Third he needed and third he got.
Apparently the opposite was the case and many players wanted to call themselves the very last EPT main event winner. And a lot of former winners tried to repeat Vicky Coren-Mitchell’s feat of winning two.
Among them were Aliaksei Boika, Jan Bendik, Dzmitry Urbanovich, Steve O’Dwyer, Hossein Ensan, Adrian Mateos, Sebastian Pauli, Dominik Panka, Remi Castaignon, Ludovic Lacay, Davidi Kitai, Benny Spindler, Robin Ylitalo and Martin Finger, just to name just a few.
When the final day started we were left with six players who had yet to win a main event on this tour, though.
The players most watched certainly were the two Americans - David Peters, one of the most successful players of the year, and Sam Cohen, one of the few female players who have made an EPT final table.
Unfortunately it took only a few hands until these two got involved in a hand that turned out to be a set-up for Cohen. She had flopped top two pair with Q-8 but Peters hit a set of nines on the turn and that sent Cohen home.
When German player Marius Gierse and Russian EPT novice Sergei Petrushevskii had left as well, three-handed play began and it turned into a marathon.
It took 4.5 hours to find the third-place finisher and it was quite a surprise as it was Peters who was out. In the massive chiplead was the Dutch cash game regular van Putten.
The finalists went into the dinner break with van Putten holding almost a 3-1 chiplead but Marton Czuczor slowly climbed up on him.
After several failed attempts the two struck a deal and exactly 20 hands later it was all over. Czuzor moved all-in with deuces, Meijer called with K-Js and hit a jack.
The final hand of the final European Poker Tour main event:
Jasper Meijer van Putten
Marton Czuczor
Board --- ---
Final-Table Payouts
| Place | Name | Country | Prize |
| 1 | Jasper Meijer van Putten | Netherlands | €699,300* |
| 2 | Marton Czuczor | Hungary | €630,000* |
| 3 | David Peters | US | €397,300 |
| 4 | Sergei Petrushevskii | RUS | €284,550 |
| 5 | Marius Gierse | GER | €203,800 |
| 6 | Sam Cohen | US | €145,900 |
| 7 | David Lopez Llacer | SP | €104,510 |
| 8 | Kiryl Radzivonau | BLR | €74,850 |
High Rollers Roll
Prior to the main event the first of two €10k single re-entry side events enticed players in and 133 players followed with 25 of them counted twice here as per re-entry.
Stefan Schillhabel came out victorious, beating Sergio Aido and Charlie Carrel in a last dash for the title. He cashed for a quarter of a million euros following a four-way deal.
However, that only made him the second last €10k high roller winner of the EPT.
| Place | Name | Country | Prize |
| 1 | Stefan Schillhabel | GER | €248,046* |
| 2 | Sergio Aido | Spain | €177,965* |
| 3 | Charlie Carrel | GB | €159,545* |
| 4 | Aliaksei Boika | BLR | €218,944* |
| 5 | Brian Senie | US | €95,200 |
| 6 | Francis-Nicolas Bouchard | CAN | €75,090 |
| 7 | Konstantin Uspenskiy | RUS | €57,400 |
| 8 | Francois Billard | CAN | €43,220 |
| 9 | Thomas Mühlöcker | AUT | €32,250 |
*4-way deal
The following €50k Super High Roller Event was a real highlight as first there aren’t many tournaments with that kind of buy-in in Europe, and second because this really was to be the last EPT €50k event.
It wasn’t without a touch of irony that the winner was Leon Tsoukernik, not only a regular at the SHR events but also the owner of the King’s Casino in Rozvadov, today the most successful casino in Europe.
Tsoukernik had played this event several times before but never made the money. This time he went all the way.
Payouts €50k Super High Roller
| Place | Name | Country | Prize |
| 1 | Leon Tsoukernik | Czech Republic | €741,100 |
| 2 | Charlie Carrel | UK | €535,250 |
| 3 | Juha Helppi | FIN | €341,550 |
| 4 | Viacheslav Buldygin | RUS | €258,800 |
| 5 | Paul Newey | UK | €200,000 |
| 6 | Julian Thomas | GER | €152,915 |
| 7 | Anthony Zinno | US | €123,520 |
The €25,500 Super High Roller event came next and, as usual, it was supposed to be a one-off tournament. Instead it turned into a three-fold high roller bonanza thanks to Steve O’Dwyer.
O'Dwyer profits nicely.
While at the final table of the first one he pondered how nice it would be to have another one of these.
Other players agreed, so they decided to have a second €25k event on the next day.
They then discovered that quite a few of the potential players were still in the main event, so they concluded they’d have to have another one on the next day – and they did.
So, the €25k High Roller turned out to be a real bonanza of daily tournaments and it somehow seems O’Dwyer was the player that profited the most of this. Take a look at the finalists:
| €25.5k SHR | Edition 1 | Prize | Edition 2 | Prize | Edition 3 | Prize |
| Entries | 83 | €2,033,050 | 25 | €612,500 | 24 | €588,000 |
| 1st | Isaac Haxton | €559,200 | Sam Greenwood | €226,600 | Sergi Reixach | €217,550 |
| 2nd | Julian Stuer | €397,550 | Jean-Noel Thorel | €156,200 | Ali Reza Fatehi | €149,940 |
| 3rd | Adrian Mateos | €260,300 | Mikita Badziakouski | €99,530 | Steve O’Dwyer | €95,550 |
| 4th | Ramin Hajiyev | €200,300 | Ali Reza Fatehi | €71,970 | Alexandros Kolonias | €69,100 |
| 5th | David Yan | €158,610 | Steve O’Dwyer | €58,200 | Jean-Noel Thorel | €55,860 |
| 6th | Steve O’Dwyer | €124,050 | x | x | X | x |
| 7th | Pablo Fernandez | €97,600 | x | x | X | x |
| 8th | Paul Newey | €76,260 | x | x | X | x |
| 9th | Charlie Carrel | €57,950 | x | x | X | x |
Kassouf Gets Last Word
Like a boss.
The last €10,300 High Roller Event concluded on the same day as the main event and it was 2016 WSOP sensation Will Kassouf who came out victorious.
He got heads-up with Patrick Serda at a 4-1 chip deficit but talked himself into a deal. Serda claimed most of the money at €719,000 but Kassouf got the trophy, the winner's pic and €532,500.
Kassouf now lives in perpetuity as the final EPT High Roller winner ever.
Final Results EPT13 Prague High Roller
1. William Kassouf United Kingdom 532,500*
2. Patrick Serda Canada 719,000*
3. Tue Ullerup Hansen Denmark 351,000
4. Viliyan Petleshkov Bulgaria 283,850
5. Paul Leckey United Kingdom 224,600
6. Grzegorz Wyraz Poland 172,910
7. Matas Cimbolas Lithuania 128,700
8. Jens Lakemeier Germany 93,170
*denotes deal
Eureka Is No More
The Eureka Poker Tour’s existence also ceased last week. The last €1,100 Eureka Main Event attracted a little over 2,000 players to make it again one of the largest tournaments of the tour.
It also proved one more time to be a tournament of the people, as you can easily see if you check the GPI rankings of the final table players.
Final-Table payouts
| Place | Name | Country | Prize | GPI ranking |
| 1 | Hubert Matuszewski | Poland | €193,298* | #5441 |
| 2 | Vladas Tamasauskas | Lithuania | €188,157* | #1142 |
| 3 | Alessandro Giordano | Italy | €180,694* | #2094 |
| 4 | Rosen Angelov | Bulgaria | €90,070 | #8174 |
| 5 | Vojtech Horut | Czech Republic | €63,680 | #8371 |
| 6 | James Juvancic | US | €45,030 | #371 |
| 7 | Jawad Bengourane | France | €31,840 | #8809 |
| 8 | Piotr Romanczukiewicz | Poland | €22,500 | #9875 |
| 9 | Ben Farrell | UK | €22,500 | #2477 |
*3-way deal
The €2,200 Eureka High Roller ended in what was very likely the most boring heads-up in Eureka history, quite simply because the players were too good. Tom Hall, off the back of a 32nd place in the Eureka main, and Mazid Khoury just didn’t seem to make any mistakes.
Khoury had a big chiplead early on but after Hall won a flip and doubled up they were virtually even and started to move very short amounts of their stacks back and forth for over three hours. Eventually, it was Hall who prevailed.
Eureka High Roller Final Table Payouts
| Place | Name | Country | Prize |
| 1 | Tom Hall | UK | €194,357* |
| 2 | Mazid Khoury | US | €216,013* |
| 3 | Andrey Demidov | RUS | €125,280 |
| 4 | Yury Masliankou | BLR | €90,950 |
| 5 | Christian Jepsson | S | €66,030 |
| 6 | Vasilii Shvarev | RUS | €47,930 |
| 7 | Bart Lybaert | BEL | €34,800 |
| 8 | Dominique Terzian | F | €25,280 |
| 9 | Michael Schmitz | GER | €19,330 |
*2-way deal
Last EPT Fun Facts
- Over the course of 13 seasons the European Poker Tour managed to crack the $1 BILLION payout mark during EPT Prague.
The King of EPT cashes.
- Sam Cohen was the first woman to make the final table of an EPT main event since Vicky Coren when she won her second title in San Remo. This also makes her the last woman to make that final table.
- Salvatore Bonavena was the last remaining former main event winner to keep the dream alive of becoming the second two-time winner. He eventually finished in 24th place.
- The EPT Live Stream will not be called EPT Live Stream anymore. Instead, it’ll be called “PokerStars TV.”
- David Peters had to come third in the main event to take over #1 in the GPI Player of the Year rankings. He finished third.
- The daily PokerStars EPT freeroll online tournament had 30,000 seats on the last day. It was full over 80 minutes before it started.
- Konstantin Puchkov leads all players with 86 ITM finishes on the EPT, followed by Pierre Neuville with 67 and Jan Bendik with 63.
And thus ends the EPT. The whole EPT team gathered on the feature table stage for a few pictures and final words by EPT president Edgar Stuchly and the voice of the EPT, James Hartigan.
PokerListings also says thank you to those following us and you won’t have to wait long until we’re back. We'll be on location at the first event of the new global PokerStars Championship Tour, starting in the Bahamas on January 6.
And one final anecdote to send the EPT off into the sunset, fresh from our collection of “just when you thought you’d seen it all” stories.
A Chip and a Pocket
During the PokerStars Cup with the big blind at 8,000, a player moved all-in for 17,500 chips. There’s a call from the big blind but the player only puts in 17,000.
The friendly dealer points out to him that he needs to put in another 500 chip. “Oh, sorry,”, says the player who then reaches into his pocket, pulls out a 500 chip and cautiously puts it into the middle.
Eight players’ jaws drop simultaneously as does the dealer’s. The tournament director is called over and decides to go without a penalty, instead explaining that you shouldn’t keep a secret chip stash in your pants.
Nobody at the table even complains. Everyone is too stunned to respond. Still, probably a sound decision by the staff.
