EPT Cyprus: Adrian Mateos and Juan Pardo Among Early High Roller Champions

The 2023 PokerStars European Poker Tour Cyprus kicked off on Oct. 11, 2023. The huge tournament festival is set to host 59 tournaments, with the centerpiece of the whole series being the $5,300 EPT Cyprus main event running Oct. 16-22.

The festival has something for everyone, with buy-ins ranging from as low as $330 all the way up to a $50,000 super high roller. The latter event is one of several nosebleed stakes tournaments on the schedule. In the first week of action, there have already been four tournaments with buy-ins of $25,000 or higher that have played down to a champion. Below is a look at the results from those high-stakes events.

EPT Cyprus $25,000 No-Limit Hold’em I

The first high roller on the agenda sported a $25,000 buy-in. The single-day event drew a massive field of 59 entries, creating a prize pool of $1,416,590.

The last player standing was Alexander Tkatschew, who earned $432,090 for the win. This was the first recorded live tournament title for the German and his second-largest score. His top payday came in 2021, when he finished third in the World Series of Poker Europe main event for $625,526. He now has nearly $1.4 million in career earnings after this big win in Cyprus.

Tkatschew was joined at the final table by plenty of big names, including bracelet winner and 2013 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure champion Dimitar Danchev (8th), two-time bracelet winner and 2015 EPT Deauville champion Ognyan Dimov (7th), rising high-stakes tournament star Biao Ding (6th), 2022 Triton Coin Rivet Invitational champion Sam Grafton (4th), bracelet winner and 2021 EPT Sochi champion Artur Martirosian (3rd), and 2022 Triton Cyprus $100,000 buy-in event winner Teun Mulder (2nd).

Ding and Martirosian are now among the top 15 in the 2023 Card Player Player of the Year race, having made 15 and 13 final tables so far, respectively.

EPT Cyprus $25,000 No-Limit Hold’em II

The second $25,000 buy-in event of the series was held the very next day, with 29 entries building a $696,290 prize pool that was split among the top five finishers. This time around it was Paulius Plausinaitis who emerged victorious with the title.

As with Tkatschew, Plausinaitis was also posing for his first live tournament winner photos after this event. The $264,690 he secured for the win was his largest recorded score yet, stopping the $241,326 he earned for a runner-up showing in a €2,700 side event at EPT Barcelona earlier this year. He now has nearly $795,000 in lifetime earnings.

Martirosian backed up his third-place finish in the first high roller with a runner-up showing this time around, adding another $170,600 and 210 POY points. With 4,921 total points and $6,948,151 in to-date POY earnings, the Russian pro is now 12th on the POY leaderboard presented by Global Poker.

Bracelet winners Leon Sturn (3rd) and Alex Kulev (4th) also cashed.

EPT Cyprus $50,000 No-Limit Hold’em

The $50,000 high roller, the largest buy-in event of the festival, attracted 46 entries to build a $2,231,460 prize pool that was split among the top six finishers. The largest share of that sum was ultimately snagged by Spain’s Juan Pardo, who struck a heads-up deal with Vicente Delgado that saw him awarded the title and $688,560.

Delgado earned $583,400 as the runner-up.

This was the third-largest live score on Pardo’s resume. His top win saw him take down a €50,000 event at the 2019 EPT Barcelona for more than $1.1 million. He now has nearly $9.4 million in recorded cashes.

Sturm, Grafton, and Mulder each recorded their second final-table finishes of the festival by making the money in this event.

EPT Cyprus $25,000 No-Limit Hold’em III

The third $25,000 buy-in of the festival drew a smaller turnout of just 16 entries. That resulted in $384,160 to play for, with just four players cashing. Four-time bracelet winner and 2015 EPT Grand Final champion Adrian Mateos came out on top in the end, earning $157,946 and his 24th recorded tournament title.

Mateos also secured 168 POY points for the win. This was his second title and 13th final-table finish of the year, with nearly $5 million in POY earnings accrued as he’s gone. With 3,978 total points, he now sits in 24th place in the 2023 POY standings.

Giia Iakobishvili was the runner-up, earning $110,964. Pardo managed a third-place finish after winning the $50,000 event earlier the same day, adding $69,150 to his tally. Two-time bracelet Aleksejs Ponakovs placed fourth for $46,100.

Photos credits: Rational Intellectual Holdings Ltd. / Danny Maxwell, Manuel Kovsca.

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