Seat 1: Santiago Plante, 27, Canada (7,500,000)
It’s almost a prerequisite to be a hockey fan when you’re from Montreal, but Santiago Plante admits he only really follows the Canadiens when they make the playoffs. Unlike the hometown team, he has been on a tremendous run – especially here at EPT Barcelona, where he’s turned each of his four tournament entries into an ITM result.
Plante said it was perhaps a little surprising to him. He felt he came to Barcelona slightly unprepared, having just taken a break from poker. Instead of sharpening his skills, he'd been recharging batteries, mostly at music festivals.
The break was well deserved after an exhausting summer grind in Las Vegas, where he cashed in 16 tournaments and made three final tables. Now he’s picked up where he left off, guaranteed to collect the biggest prize of his career.
“Making the televised EPT final table is a fanboy’s dream,” Plante said. He revealed that the EPT streams played an important role in sparking his passion for the game. “This is the biggest tournament outside the United States, and the last 10 days here have been a lot of fun,” he added.