There were 531 players who took the field in the European Poker Tour’s Hungarian Open tournament, held in Las Vegas Casino Sofitel Hotel in the Budapest. In the end, UK native Will Fry, a PokerStars member and poker pro of five years, captured victory in the tournament as well as its €595,839 first place prize.
Fry also took home a seat into the €10,000 buy-in EPT Monte Carlo Grand Final, which is held annually in April and May at the storied casino in Monaco. It serves as the culmination to each EPT season. This year’s tournament in Budapest was the first EPT event ever held in Hungary. In the final hand of the tournament, Fry’s pocket jacks bested Ciprian Hrisca’s A-6. Fry told tournament officials in a press release distributed by its sponsor, PokerStars, that the jacks “were the first good cards I’d had in ages. Up until then, I’d been re-raising with rubbish, but if I get good cards, I can be pretty dangerous.” Fry was fourth in chips entering the eight-handed final table; Hrisca’s 1.04 million chips were good for the second largest stack.
Out of the 531 players who entered the EPT Budapest event, 157 were from PokerStars, representing about 30% of the field. The top-finishing member of Team PokerStars Pro, which includes World Series of Poker Main Event winners Greg Raymer, Chris Moneymaker, and Joe Hachem, was Alex Kravchenko, who took home €10,640 for his 23rd place finish. Kara Scott, who was featured heavily during the WSOP Main Event (and coveted by ESPN announcer Norman Chad), ended her run in 52nd place, earning €7,448. Kravchenko won a WSOP bracelet by emerging victorious in a $1,500 buy-in Omaha High-Low Split Eight or Better event during the 2007 WSOP, besting Bryan Devonshire heads-up.
In the same press release, EPT founder John Duthie showed his elation for the tournament series’ continued success in first-time locales like Budapest: “The EPT has once again proved that we can move into emerging markets like Hungary and provide a sell-out tournament. The support from the local players has been overwhelming and players have also been happy to travel from all over the world to attend the inaugural event in Budapest.”
When the smoke cleared, the final paydays were as follows. The buy-in was a healthy €4,350 and, amazingly, seven countries were represented in the event’s final eight players, manifesting the international flair of EPT tournaments:
1st Place: Will Fry (United Kingdom) – €595,839
2nd Place: Ciprian Hrisca (Romania) – €342,608
3rd Place: Martin Jacobson (Sweden) – €197,904
4th Place: Albert Iverson (Denmark) – €153,216
5th Place: Marino Serenelli (Italy) – €127,680
6th Place: Gino Alacqua (Italy) – €100,016
7th Place: Zoltan Toth (Hungary) – €78,736
8th Place: Johnny Lodden (Norway) – €53,200
Hungary has produced a fine crop of poker talent. Denes Kalo finished in second place in two separate events during the fourth season of the EPT. He was the runner up to Julian Thew in the Baden Classic for €375,000 and also finished in second place at the Monte Carlo Grand Final for €1,179,000. That tournament was won by Canadian Glen Chorny. Valdemar Kwaysser took down the Costa Rican leg of the PokerStars-sponsored Latin American Poker Tour earlier this year, cashing for $274,103. Zoltan Toth, who finished in seventh place, was the highest-placing Hungarian in Budapest.
The EPT Polish Open, which takes place in Warsaw, is the next event on the docket for the tournament series. Its 21,000 zl buy-in Championship Event begins on November 15th and will crown a champion four days later. One Zloty was equal to roughly USD $0.35 at the time of writing. Here is a look at the schedule. All times are local:
November 13th at 6:00pm: NLHE Freeze-out – 1,100 zl buy-in
November 14th at 6:00pm: Main Event Super Satellite – 1,100 zl with rebuys
November 15th at 2:00pm: Main Event Day 1A
November 16th at 2:00pm: Main Event Day 1B
November 17th at 2:00pm: Main Event Day 2
November 18th at 2:00pm: Main Event Day 3
November 18th at 5:00pm: No Limit Hold’em Freeze-out – 5,400 zl buy-in
November 19th at 2:00pm: Main Event Final Table
November 19th at 5:00pm: Omaha Pot Limit Freeze-out – 5,400 zl buy-in
