European Poker Tour is back to live felt, and players can finally have an opportunity to face each other in person by taking part in the popular tournament. The last EPT, which is also the first live EPT this year, took part in Casino Sochi and is aptly named EPT Sochi. It started on March 19 and lasted for nine days. The last time EPT visited Sochi was in October 2020. The only other EPT that took place last year was online.
The most important part of the EPT Sochi was the Main Event. The winner of this lucrative competition was Artur Martirosyan, one of the best poker players from Russia at the moment. Even though he is just 23 years old, Martirosian has already managed to hit many headlines related to poker as he has had huge achievements in online poker — especially in SCOOP events that took place last year. Martirosian is known in the online poker world as “mararthur1.” As it turns out, he is just as good when it comes to live poker, as he managed to top the EPT Sochi Main Event.
The Main Event required the buy-in of 175,000 Russian rubles, which is approximately $2,311. A total of 852 entrants were recorded, and Martirosian managed to win the lion’s share of the prize pool — 23,633,316 rubles, which is $325,316. This also happens to be his first European Poker Tour title. Apart from the hefty prize, Martirosian had an opportunity to win a beautiful trophy.
Martirosyan himself loved the design of the trophy. He stated that he liked it so much that he hadn’t wanted to make any final-table deals with other players. In other words, he didn’t dare risk it and lose the trophy.
The 832 entrants managed to create a prize pool of 131,899,810 rubles, which is a huge increase from the last such tournament when a total of 637 entrants were recorded. The 2020 EPT Sochi Main Event was won by Ruslan Bogdanov, who made a heads-up deal with Viktor Tkachenko.
Needless to say, the majority of the players were Russians. Out of 127 players who managed to make it to the money list, 106 of them were Russian citizens. Therefore, it should come as a surprise that the winner also turned out to be Russian. Simply put, EPT Sochi is one of the most important poker events in the country, and many players are interested to take part in it.
The Final Table
The final table was also predominantly Russian, with only two players being outside the country.
The first player to hit the rail was Roman Gadziev, and he was followed by the first non-Russian player, Vladimir Bozinovic, from Serbia. The sixth place was reserved for Anton Smirnov, and Yuriy Brechalov left the game soon after that as a fifth-placed player.
Fanis Khafizov left in the fourth place, and the last player to leave the game before the heads-up was Mukhtar Taysi from Turkey, the second non-Russian player in the heads-up.
Martirosyan’s heads-up opponent was Vladislav Naumov, who had to settle for the consolation prize of 14,957,600 Russian rubles.
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