The 2022 PokerStars European Poker Tour (EPT) Prague Main Event is down to its final four players with Jordan Saccucci leading the way. The remaining players will return on Sunday to compete for the title and the first-place prize money of €1,054,500.
Unfortunately for PokerStars Ambassador Parker Talbot he won’t be joining them, having fallen in fifth place for €278,450, bringing the curtain down on the penultimate day’s play.
That figure is a new career-best for the Canadian, surpassing the €179,360 he earned for a sixth-place finish in the same event four years ago, but it’s a case of so near, yet so far for Talbot who could have joined an exclusive club of PokerStars Ambassadors to have won EPT titles — only six players have ever achieved the feat!
Victoria Coren Mitchell – EPT Sanremo 2014
Arguably one of the most famous EPT victories of all, Victoria Coren Mitchell’s San Remo triumph was not only Coren Mitchell’s second EPT title — the first person to achieve the feat — but it’s also the most recent occurrence of a PokerStars Ambassador winning an EPT Main Event.
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Coren Mitchell departed PokerStars in 2014 but still makes appearances on the European Poker Tour, playing in the return of EPT London and even commenting on the Hustler Casino Live controversy earlier this year.
Mickey Petersen – EPT Copenhagen 2012
A Danish victory for a Danish player as Mickey Petersen won EPT Copenhagen over a decade ago to take home €338,133.
He defeated 299 players after a six-hour heads-up match against veteran Belgian player Pierre Neuville — who was also a PokerStars Team Pro at the time.
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Pieter de Korver – EPT Monte Carlo 2009
€2.3 million. The biggest EPT Main Event first prize — surpassed only by the $3 million payout Poorya Nazari won at the 2009 PCA.
And who won that seven-figure sum — Pieter de Korver. Unsurprisingly his victory in the 2009 EPT Grand Final is the largest cash of his career, and he still sits fourth on the Dutch all-time money list behind Teun Mulder, Marcel Luske and Jorryt van Hoof.
Sandra Naujoks – EPT German Open 2009
A female champion on the European Poker Tour is a special feat, with only three women ever having achieved it.
Sandra Naujoks won the EPT German Open in Dortmund back in 2009, becoming the second-ever female to win the title after Coren Mitchell’s victory in September 2006.
And for those of you wondering about Liv Boeree’s 2010 EPT Sanremo victory? It came five months before she joined Team PokerStars Pro.
Sebastian Ruthenberg – EPT Barcelona 2008
Just eight months later, Sebastian Ruthenberg became the second PokerStars Ambassador to win an EPT title at EPT Barcelona in the first event of Season 5.
Ruthenberg had only joined as an Ambassador earlier in the year, and won a WSOP bracelet that summer before heading to the EPT’s traditional summer stop.
He took a 5:1 chip lead into heads-up play against Fintan Gavin and eventually won, walking away with $1,361,000.
Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier – PCA 2008
A famous face in the world of poker, Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier is one of the biggest names to have won a title on the European Poker Tour, and was the very first to do so as a PokerStars Ambassador. 2008 was the first time the PCA was part of the EPT, and Grospellier won $2,000,000 after defeating a field of 1,136 players.
Grospellier departed PokerStars as an Ambassador in January 2018 after 11-and-a-half years of a “great partnership”.
Note: Our thanks to PokerStars Commentator James Hartigan for his assistance with this article
Executive Editor E.U.
Will Shillibier is based in the United Kingdom. He graduated from the University of Kent in 2017 with a B.A. in German, and then studied for a NCTJ Diploma in Sports Journalism at Sportsbeat in Manchester. He previously worked as a freelance live reporter, and video presenter for the World Poker Tour.