Polish poker pro Dzmitry Urbanovich ensured the inaugural European Poker Tour Malta caught attention Friday, winning the Euro 25,000 buy-in High Roller competition against stiff opposition to claim a main prize of Euro 572,300.
The event attracted 68 entries and 20 reentries, generating a prize pool of Euro 2.15 million, which enabled 13 players to cash.
After three days the final table was formed, with Urbanovich and American player Connor Drinan jointly leading in chips and seated around the table with some formidable players, including Daniel Dvoress and Sam Greenwood (Canada), Nick Petrangelo and Dani Stern (USA), Piotr Franczak (Poland) and German ace Martin Finger.
The leading duo managed to retain and build their stacks as they eliminated opponents in a lengthy but exciting series of exchanges until just the two of them were left in the heads up.
At that stage the more experienced Drinan had the upper hand, but his Polish opponent ploughed grimly on, first reducing the lead and then overtaking Drinan before eventually putting him away at the end of the gruelling two-and-a-half hour heads up contest.
The size of the first prize meant that it was not only Urbanovich’s first six-figure win, but also several times his previous career earnings (his previous biggest win was a third-place worth Euro 32,000 in an Estrellas Poker Tour event last year).
The other final table pay-days were:
2nd Connor Drinan Euro 397,800
3rd Daniel Dvoress Euro 263,000
4th Nick Petrangelo Euro 205,900
5th Dani Stern Euro 166,000
6th Piotr Franczak Euro 129,400
7th Sam Greenwood Euro 102,400
8th Martin Finger Euro 79,800