Spanish poker player Juan Pardo won the trophy and more than €200,000 in the €10,000 Buy-in Opening Event during the 2018 PokerStars and Monte Carlo Casino EPT festival. Taking place from April 24 through May 4 at the famous Monte Carlo Casino in Monaco, the festival features tens of events and gives players the chance to win one of five Platinum Pass packages to the PokerStars Players NL Hold’em Championship.
The Opening Event with a €10,000 entry fee kicked off Tuesday, April 4, with a field of 71 entries and Canada’s poker pro Timothy Adams emerged as chip leader after both Day 1 and Day 2 of the tournament. Heading to the final table, he held more than a million in chips, followed by Reiner Kempe (Germany) with 771,000 and Ryan Riess (United States) with 702,000. After Iran’s Behzad Ahadpour busted on the bubble, the final table seemed quite tough to dominate over, with opponents such as Stephen Chidwick (United Kingdom), Kempe and Riess. The final eight players were guaranteed at least €26,000, while the first-place prize was €201,500, quite a modest amount by the EPT standards.
Russian player Vladimir Troyanovskiy was the first to hit the rail on the feature table, taking home the minimum cash prize of €26,000. Chidwick and Turkey’s Orpen Kisacikoglu followed, finishing 7th and 6th and receiving €33,500 and €42,700 for their respective rankings. Chip leader Adams was surpassed by experienced poker pro Ryan Riess, who took the lead. Meanwhile, Adams managed to eliminate Kempe (5th, €55,000) with Ace-King over Ace-Jack. UK’s Paul Newey (4th, €71,000) was easily busted by 24-year-old Spaniard Juan Pardo due to his short stack and once, Pardo eliminated Riess (3rd, €94,000), he ended up in a heads-up match against Timothy Adams.
The battle for the trophy between the two last standing players did not last long, as Adams lagged behind with only 870,000 in chips against Pardo’s nearly 3 million. In the final hand, Pardo’s Ace-King ended Adams’ three-day reign over the tournament, who held King-9 and finished second for €145,000. The less experienced Spanish player received the trophy and the €201,500 first-place prize.
2018 PokerStars and Monte Carlo Casino EPT
The ongoing festival at the Monte Carlo Casino is the latest stop of the European Poker Tour series (EPT) and it will reward five of the best poker players Platinum Pass packages, each worth $30,000. The Platinum Pass includes a $25,000 seat to the PokerStars Players NL Hold’em Championship (PSPC), which takes place in January 2019 at the Bahamas. In addition, the package features six nights’ accommodation at Atlantis Paradise Island Resort and $2,000 in food and beverage allowances.
The festival’s Main Event starts Saturday with a €5,300 buy-in but another exciting tournament is already underway – the three-day Super High Roller which has a huge entry fee of €100,000. Despite the field of only 46 entrants, the event collected a total prize pool of €4,462,920, which means the Super High Roller Champion will receive €1,520,000, while the runner-up will take home €1,046,000. While most players already busted, several more eliminations would take before the action winds up to the final table Friday night.
Among the surviving players, we can see two Canadians, Sam Greenwood and Timothy Adams, and the current chip leader is Germany’s Jan-Eric Schwippert with 1,550,000 in chips, followed closely by Iran’s Ali Reza Fatehi (1,550,000) and another German player, Ole Schemion, who holds a little over 1,400,000.
