Pedro Marques Tops Record Field In EPT Prague Main Event

Despite squaring off against both the World Series of Poker Paradise in the Bahamas and the World Poker Tour World Championship in Las Vegas, the €5,300 main event of the 2024 PokerStars European Poker Tour Prague festival managed to attract a huge field of 1,458 entries. This set a new turnout record for the tournament, which was being held for the 17th time since debuting in 2007.

The 2023 running of this event had been the largest so far with 1,285 entries, but this latest showing amounted to a 13.5 percent year-over-year increase.

After two starting flights and five more days of combined field action inside of the Hilton Hotel Prague, Portugal’s Pedro Marques emerged victorious with the title and the top prize of €963,450 ($1,021,257). This was the second-largest tournament payday for the 31-year-old, who previously earned $1,251,500 as the fifth-place finisher in the 2023 PokerStars Players No-Limit Hold’em Championship.

“This is huge for me. I’ve been playing poker for 10 years and it’s an amazing feeling. I hope one day everybody in this room can have this feeling because it’s great,” Marques told PokerStars reporters.

With this latest seven-figure score, Marques has grown his recorded earnings to nearly $6 million. He remains in second place on Portugal’s all-time money list, trailing only three-time bracelet winner Joao Vieira ($14 million).

The prize pool worth more than $7.4 million in this event was paid out amongst the top 216 finishers. The final day began with Romania’s Paul Runcan in the lead and just six contenders remaining. Marques sat on the second-largest stack when play resumed.

The first knockout of the day was earned by Marques, when his flopped two pair held against the pocket aces of Siarhei Alontsau (6th – $247,033). Anton Bergstrom (5th – $321,180) was the next to hit the rail, with the Swede’s A-10 losing a preflop race against the pocket fours of Runcan. Bergstrom was reportedly revealed as the player behind the ‘WhatIfGod’ screen name, which has captured two EPT Online titles including the 2020 EPT Online main event which paid out over $1 million up top.

The next elimination saw Marques shove from the button with J 8 suited, with a couple of the shorter stacks in the blinds. Barak Oz (4th – $417,587) made the call with A 7 and was ahead, but Marques flopped a pair of eights and held from there to narrow the field to three.

Jaehyung Park’s run in this event came to an end in third place ($542,826). The Korean player’s A 6 was unable to come from behind against the A K of Runcan. With that, Runcan took nearly a 5:1 chip lead into heads-up play, but Marques then won a big pot with a rivered straight besting pocket aces to pull nearly even.

The two then hashed out a deal to redistribute the prize money, locking up $954,000 for each while leaving the trophy and $67,257 to play for. Marques overtook the chip lead in time for the final hand of the event, with K Q besting Q J.

Tsvetanov, Geci, And Sztenkiel Top Thousands For Big Payouts

The main event was far from the only big result from the 45-event 2024 EPT Prague schedule. There was more than $32.6 million in total prize money awarded throughout the series, with eight tournaments that paid out at least a million dollars in prize money.

The first was the €1,100 Eureka Poker Tour Prague main event. The tournament ended up with a new record of 4,732 entries, an increase of more than 300 players over last year’s 4,403 showing. Bulgaria’s Martin Tsvetanov came out on top this year, earning $475,976 as the champion.

A few days into the series, a €550 no-limit hold’em event drew the second-largest field of the festival with 2,716 entries. That resulted in $1,375,513 to award across 406 finishers. The lion’s share went to the UK’s Endrit Geci. He headed home with $175,154 as the champion.

Piotr Sztenkiel topped another massive field, beating out 1,652 entries in the €2,200 event to walk away with $520,502. This was the first live title for the Polish player, who had only one previous recorded score to his name. He was one of 248 to cash, with $3,331,701 awarded across that swath of players.

Santerne Shines With High Roller Hat Trick

There were eight events held during this festival with buy-ins of €10,000 or higher and more than a third of them were won by one player in France’s Thomas Santerne. The rising high-stakes star completed this high-stakes hat trick by taking down a €25,000 buy-in no-limit hold’em event.

This win came just three days after he emerged victorious in the €50,000 event for $408,869, which was the largest buy-in of the series. His title streak began in the €20,000 buy-in tournament three days before that for $185,500. The trio of victories added $733,494 to Santerne’s career haul, putting him just shy of $5.3 million in lifetime earnings.

Santerne had one previous title in 2024 ahead of taking down these three events, having won the €50,000 high roller at EPT Paris in February for $960,638.

Several other notable champions came out on top of the other high buy-in events on the schedule. One of them was 2022 WSOP main event winner Espen Jorstad, who will not go down in poker history as a one-hit wonder as he has found plenty of success since earning $10 million as the world champion a couple years ago.

The Norwegian poker pro has recorded 52 in-the-money finishes since that career-defining triumph, adding more than $7.8 million to his career haul. Jorstad’s latest score saw him defeat a field of 34 entries in the first €25,000 in Prague. He earned $294,150 as the champion.

Earlier in the series Andras Nemeth defeated a field of 42 entries in the €10,200 no-limit hold’em mystery bounty event for $140,959. Yauheni Tsiareshchanka defeated Steve O’Dwyer heads-up in the €12,300 knockout bounty event, earning $63,600.

Patrik Jaros secured the largest live tournament score of his career on home soil, topping a field of 289 entries to win a €10,300 high roller for $607,910. This came roughly a week after he took down a €5,200 pot-limit Omaha event earlier on the schedule for $160,696. The Czech player now has more than $2.4 million in recorded earnings to his name after this sizable win.

Teun Mulder took down the final high roller of the festival, overcoming Italian crusher Enrico Camosci heads-up in a €10,200 high roller to earn $60,113. The win took the Dutch player’s earnings over $8.8 million.