Alexandros Kolonias Wins 2019 World Series of Poker Europe Main Event

Alexandros Kolonias is the 2019 World Series of Poker Europe €10,350 buy-in no-limit hold’em main event champion. The 32-year-old Greek poker pro outlasted a field of 541 entries to secure his first WSOP gold bracelet and the top prize of $1,258,383 USD.

“I still haven’t figured it out in my mind what actually happened. I am really happy about the way I played in the beginning,” Kolonias told WSOP reporters after coming out on top. “One level was not so good when we had four left, but things worked out for me.”

Kolonias is primarily focused on online poker, and has reportedly cashed for more than $3 million under the screen name “mexican222”. While live tournament poker has been less of a focus for him, he has now managed to accumulate career earnings in excess of $3.6 million, making him the highest-earning Greek player of all time.

In addition to the bracelet and the money, Kolonias was also awarded 2,100 Card Player Player of the Year points as the champion of this event. This was his second final table of the year, having placed fourth in the partypoker LIVE! MILLIONS North America main event for $273,800 USD and 1,050 points back in May. As a result of this latest win, Kolonias has climbed into 37th place in the 2019 POY race standings, which are sponsored by Global Poker.

This year’s running drew the second-largest turnout in WSOPE main event history, behind only the 593 entries made in 2011. The 541 entries made this year saw the prize pool grow to €5,139,500 ($5,710,087 USD), with the top 82 finishers making the money.

The official final table was nine-handed, but play continued on the penultimate day of the event until just six players remained. WSOP bracelet winner Julien Martini was knocked out in seventh place, earning $146,539 USD for his fourth final-table finish of the year. Martini finished runner-up in the record-breaking $25,000 buy-in PokerStars NL Hold’em Players Championship in January for $2,974,000. He now sits in 22nd place on the POY race leaderboard.

When the final table began it was 2015 Card Player Player of the Year winner Anthony Zinno who sat in the chip lead. The two-time bracelet winner and three-time World Poker Tour main event champion began the day with 84 big blinds, while Kolonias was the next largest stack with 61 big blinds.

The first player to hit the rail was 2017 WSOP $1,000 no-limit hold’em turbo bounty event winner Rifat Palevic. He shoved his last 10 or so big blinds with K2 when it folded to him in the small blind. Anh Do woke up with QQ and called from the big blind. Palevic failed to improve and was eliminated in sixth place, earning $197,770 USD.

Despite scoring that first knockout, Do was the next to fall. He lost a big pot with pocket queens losing out to the pocket jacks of 2019 WSOP main event runner-up Dario Sammartino. Do was left quite short and was eliminated not long after, running K9 into the pocket kings of Claas Segebrecht.

Sammartino’s run came to an end when he got his last 7.5 or so big blinds in with AK against the J10 of Segebrecht. A jack-high flop gave Segebrecht the lead and he never looked back. The Italian poker pro earned $379,289 USD for his fourth final-table finish of 2019. He also took home 1,050 POY points, enough to see him climb into 7th place in the overall POY rankings, with 4,800 total points and more than $6.6 million in earnings.

Anthony Zinno fell just short of securing his third career bracelet. The American poker pro three-bet shoved from the big blind for around 13 big blinds with A9. Kolonias had opened J10 from the button and made the call. The QJ68K runout gave Kolonias the winning pair of jacks to send Zinno to the rail with $538,673 USD as the the third-place finisher. He surged into 15th place in the POY race after banking 1,400 points. This was his seventh final table of 2019.

With that Kolonias took just shy of a 3:2 chip lead into heads up play with Claas Segebrecht. In the end, it came down to a preflop coinflip. Kolonias raised to 1,200,000 from the small blind with the AK. Segebrecht three-bet shoved for 23,200,000 from the big blind with 33. Kolonias called and the board came down KQ2J5 to give Kolonias an ace-high flush to secure the pot and the title. Segebrecht earned $777,709 USD as the runner-up.

Here is a look at the payouts and POY points awarded at the final table:

Winner photo provided by WSOP.

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