Serbian Wins Merit Poker Carmen Series Main EventNenad Dukic Tops Field Of 881 Entries In $3,500 Buy-In To Earn $401,000 |
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The 2025 Merit Poker Carmen Series $3,300 no-limit hold’em main event attracted 881 total entries across four starting flights, easily surpassing the $1.5 million guarantee to end with a final prize pool of $2,431,560.
Serbia’s Nenad Dukic ultimately walked away with the largest piece of that total, earning $401,000 as the champion. This was a new career-high score for Dukic, whose previous top payday came when he placed fifth in a €3,000 mystery bounty event at the 2022 European Poker Tour Prague festival. He now has nearly $723,000 in lifetime cashes to his name.
In addition to the money and the hardware, Dukic also scored 1,368 Card Player Player of the Year points for the win. This was his first POY-qualified score of 2025, but it alone was enough to move him inside the top 60 in the overall standings presented by Global Poker.
And here is the photo of the #MainEvent Final Table. One of them will be the champion today. The only question is—WHO? pic.twitter.com/k3MgkmPoC9
— Merit Poker (@meritpokerlive) March 24, 2025
The final day began with nine players remaining and Dukic in the lead. Leonid Orman (9th – $39,600) was the first to fall, with his J-10 suited unable to overcome the pocket queens of Dukic.
The next knockout pitted the J
8 of Daniil Kiselev against the A
A
of Soraya Estrada. Kiselev hit a jack on the flop, but failed to improve any further and was eliminated in eighth place ($52,200).
Maher Achour’s run came to an end when he called off the last of his short stack with bottom pair, only to lose to the second pair of Mikhail Zavoloka. Achour earned $65,700 for his seventh-place showing.
Chady Ojeil’s last stand saw him call off with top pair, only to be shown pocket aces by Dukic. Oheil took home $80,500 as the sixth-place finisher.
A classic race situation spelled the end of Han Han’s tournament, with his K-Q unable to overcome the pocket jacks of Dukic. Han secured $99,050 for making it down to the top five.
Soraya Estrada
Mikhail Zavoloka got the last of his stack in with A-Q leading the A-8 of Dunkic, but the Serbian flopped an open-ended straight draw and got there on the turn. A blank on the river sent Zavoloka to the rail in third place with $185,250. This was the fourth-largest score of his career. It brought his lifetime earnings to nearly $2.2 million.
With that the heads-up showdown was set between Dukic (62,000,000) and Akin Tuna (26,000,000). It didn’t take long for Dukic to convert his lead into the title. On the second hand of the match he shoved from the button with 33 and Tuna called all-in with A9. The flop came down 3
22 to give Dunkic a full house right off the bat. The 9 on the turn gave Tuna some hope, but the 7 river meant that he was officially knocked out in second place ($265,000). The Turkish player is approaching $1.8 million in overall cashes, with this being his third-largest windfall yet.
Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Earnings | POY Points |
| 1 | Nenad Dukic | $401,000 | 1368 |
| 2 | Akin Tuna | $265,000 | 1140 |
| 3 | Mikhail Zavoloka | $185,250 | 912 |
| 4 | Soraya Estrada | $132,100 | 684 |
| 5 | Han Han | $99,050 | 570 |
| 6 | Chady Ojeil | $80,500 | 456 |
| 7 | Maher Achour | $65,700 | 342 |
| 8 | Daniil Kiselev | $52,200 | 228 |
| 9 | Leonid Orman | $39,600 | 114 |
Photo credits: Merit Poker.
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