Alexander Tkatschew Wins Second EPT Championship in Just a Few Short Months
Alexander Tkatschew of Austria has just conquered the record-breaking 4,403-player field in the €1,100 Eureka Main Event at the 2023 PokerStars European Poker Tour (EPT) Prague to earn €511,710 of the €4,226,880 prize pool.
Tkatschew is no stranger to victory though as he has just come off a first-place victory of $432,090 at EPT Cyprus, defeating 59 runners in the $25,000 No-limit Hold'em.
"It feels very good, they are very long days and a lot of fun," said the newly crowned champion. "I like the structure and the field. It's a very good tournament."
Tkatschew came to the final table with the plan to play tight in the beginning, and then adapt to the players. "You have to know to play tighter against one player, but looser against the other."
Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Country | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alexander Tkatschew | Austria | € 511,710 |
| 2 | Remigiusz Wyrzykiewicz | Poland | € 306,790 |
| 3 | Catalin Moraru | Romania | € 219,120 |
| 4 | Miroslav Forman | Czechia | € 168,570 |
| 5 | Eduardo Pereira | Portugal | € 129,680 |
| 6 | Ercan Atmaca | Netherlands | € 99,750 |
| 7 | Viktor Jensen | Sweden | € 76,720 |
| 8 | Radek Jantos | Czechia | € 59,010 |
Day 4 Action
The day began with nine players and although there were plenty of chips going into the center of the table, nobody seemed to want to bust. A bit of controversy came in the first two hours as Wyrzykiewicz thought Ercan Atmaca had called his river bet when he showed his pocket aces too early, pausing the clock for an official ruling.
Ironically it was only a few hands later that he had pocket aces once again, earning the first casualty of the day when he eliminated Antonino Venneri who had also flopped an overpair on the eight-high board.
Next to hit the rail, finishing in eighth was Radek Jantos when his ace-king couldn't connect against Eduardo Pereira's pocket queens.
Atmaca found himself extremely short-stacked after losing a flip to Miroslav Forman and began to battle back as he doubled once, but failed to double again when he shoved jack-deuce suited and was called by Forman's ace-king.
Pereira had a bit of an unlucky finish to the tournament as his ace-jack failed to hold against Catalin Moraru's king-nine, leaving him with fewer than two big blinds. On his final hand, he flopped two pair but lost to the open-ended straight draw of Wyrzykiewicz.
Finishing third with an impressive ladder up throughout the day, being short for the first five hours, was Moraru, getting his final chips in with pocket sixes against eventual champion Tkatschew.
After an eventful day, it was Wyrzykiewicz who finished as the runner-up despite being atop of the counts for large parts of the final table. He missed his straight and flush draw heads-up in an attempt to end it all, and found himself short-stacked. Only a few hands later, his pocket sixes lost to nines for Tkatschew to claim victory.
That wraps up the PokerNews live reporting team's coverage of the record-breaking €1,100 Eureka Main Event. Be sure to check out the EPT Prague reporting portal for coverage of other events at this European stop.