Simone Andrian Wins World Series of Poker Europe Main Event For $1.4 Million

This year’s World Series of Poker Europe €10,350 buy-in no-limit hold’em championship drew a sizable field of 768 entries, blowing away the event’s €5 million guarantee to create a final prize pool worth more than $8 million when rendered ins US dollars.

The largest share of that money was captured by eventual champion Simone Andrian, who weathered a grueling heads-up clash to secure his third career WSOP gold bracelet and the top prize of $1,443,000.

This was the first seven-figure score for the Italian player, making it by far his largest payday yet. Prior to this career-defining victory, his best cash was the $177,650 he earned for taking down the 2021 WSOP Europe €1,650 six-max no-limit hold’em event. That was his first bracelet win. His second came just over a month ago in the 2024 WSOP Online International $800 deepstack event for another $156,230.

Andrian now has more than $2.9 million in career cashes after this latest win, which accounts for nearly half of his recorded earnings.

This victory also awarded 2,280 Card Player Player of the Year points to Andrian. This was his second title and fourth final-table finish so far, having also won a $2,200 buy-in event at the Merit Poker Western Series back in January for $165,000 and 720 points. With 3,660 total points, he has surged into 30th place in the 2024 POY standings presented by Global Poker.

This event featured two starting flights and four-more days of combined field action inside Kings Resort Rozvadov in the Czech Republic. The top 116 finishers made the money, with big names like 2024 WSOP main event third-place finisher Niklas Astedt (98th), Viktor ‘Isildur1’ Blom (48th), World Poker Tour champion David Dongwoo Ko (44th), bracelet winner and WPT champion Dietrich Fast (42nd), six-time bracelet winner Shaun Deeb (34th), Sirzat Hissou (26th), and three-time bracelet winner Anson Tsang (10th) running deep.

The final day began with Andrian leading and just six contenders remaining. The first player to hit the rail was Italy’s Enrico Camosci. The bracelet winner and high-stakes tournament regular was the short stack to start. He eventually got his last 14 big blinds in preflop, three-bet calling off with AJ from the small blind. Urmo Velvelt, who opened from the hijack and four-bet shoved over Camosci’s three-bet, held 88. Camosci flopped the nut flush draw, but improved no further from there and was eliminated in sixth place ($240,870). He now has nearly $4.8 million in recorded scores after this latest deep run.

Not long after doubling up through Andrian, David Hochheim three-bet shoved with A-4 from the big blind facing a small blind open from Andrian. This time around, the Italian ‘had it’. He quickly called with pocket queens and held through a king-high paired board runout send Hochheim packing in fifth place ($329,670).

Mariusz Golinski’s run in this event came to an end when his AJ ran into the AQ of Andrian. The Q978A runout was not without a twinge of drama, but ultimately Andrian made aces up to drag the pot and eliminate Golinski (4th – $460,650).

When three-handed play began, Ran Ilani had roughly one-fifth as many chips as Velvelt, who was in second on the leaderboard at the time. Ilani got off to a strong start, though, managing a couple of early double-ups to claw his was out of the danger zone. Had he won a classic preflop race in his next all-in, he would have moved into second chip position. His A-K was unable to outrun the pocket queens of Velvelt, though, and Ilani was knocked out in third place ($654,900). This was the largest score yet for the Israeli player, surpassing the $166,552 he earned as the runner-up in the 2021 WSOP $800 deepstack event.

Velvelt held the lead going into heads-up play thanks to that knockout, sitting with 40,375,000 to Andrian’s 36,425,000. The two traded the lead between them over the course of roughly three hours of one-on-one play with the bracelet hanging in the balance.

Andrian eventually jumped back out in front after winning a big pot with top pair against a pair and gutshot for Velvelt, with the chips going in on the turn. Andrian improved to jacks up on the river to take more than a 4:1 chip lead. Not too long after that, Andrian opened for a min-raise to 1,000,000 on the button with 1010. Velvelt three-bet to 3,500,000 from the big blind with A10 and Andrian four-bet to 7,000,000. Velvelt shoved for 25,500,000 and Andrian called. The board came down 9627K and the pocket tens held to bring the event to a close. Velvelt earned $947,940 as the runner-up, the largest score yet for the Estonian.

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

Photo credit: WSOP / Tomas Stacha.

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