European Poker Tour in Prague saw a huge field of players this time. Not less than 584 (219 Day 1a and 365 Day 1b) players entered the tournament and created a total prize pool of €2,842,100. After that Day1 a & b, Day 2, 3 & 4 had been played, it was finally time for the final table. These were the 8 players who were about to battle for the EPT Trophy and the first prize of €682,000.
Seat 1: Anthony Roux (2,839,000)
Seat 2: Stefan Mattsson (3,553,000)
Seat 3: Laurence Ryan (1,338,000)
Seat 4: Gustav Ekerot (502,000)
Seat 5: Sven Eichelbaum (658,000)
Seat 6: Jan Skampa (3,985,000)
Seat 7: Eyal Avitan (2,627,000)
Seat 8: Luca Pagano (2,119,000)
Most notable of these finalist was of course the Italian poker pro Luca Pagano who‘s not a newbie when it comes to playing EPT final tables (6 EPT final tables, 13 EPT cashes). Luca Pagano, however, finished on 6th place this time. Many Swedish poker players did very well in EPT Prague, and 2 of them made it all the way to the final table, Gustav Ekerot & Stefan Mattsson. Stefan Mattsson sent two players packing and was massive chip leader with only 5 remaining players, but unfortunately he lost a lot of his stack to Jan Skampa when both players went all in with big pocket pair's. After this hand, Mattsson lost his edge and was sent packing in 3rd place.
The 2 remaining players that now were going to play heads-up were Jan Skampa (Czech Republic) and Eyal Avitan (Israel). Eyal Avitan had big chip lead and it looked like Jan Skampa's chances of winning were very small. Jan Skampa, however, refused to give up even though he was the big underdog and thanks to the great support from his fellow countrymen he played his very best poker. After 3,5 hours of heads-up poker, Jan Skampa had suddenly taken control over the game. The fight continued for many more hands until a very tired Avitan decided to push all in pre-flop with J-9 and got called by Skampa's J-J. The crowd went wild as soon as it stood clear that Skampa's J-J was the winning hand and that the EPT Prague trophy was going to stay in Czech Republic.
Final table results:
1. Jan Skampa €682 000
2. Eyal Avitan €454 000
3. Stefan Mattsson €255 000
4. Anthony Roux €171 000
5. Laurence Ryan €135 000
6. Luca Pagano €100 000
7. Gustav Ekerot €71 000
8. Sven Eichelbaum €55 500
