Chris Nguyen Takes Two Million for EPT Super High Roller in Monte Carlo

Three days, 74 total entries and a prizepool of over $8.16 million. The 2025 European Poker Tour Monte Carlo Super High Roller had it all, with first, second and third place each earning over a million dollars. After the gold dust settled, it was Chris Nguyen who was the master of the millionaire set, with Enrico Camosci beaten heads-up for the $2.3m top prize.

Early Exit at Final Table for Koon

In Triton Poker Series events, Jason Koon is unmatched with ten outright wins. However, this time, it didn’t work out for the West Virginian, as he was the first player to bust from the final nine for a score worth $255,300. Koon had reached the money places along with Paulius Plausinaitis (11^th) and Ben Tollerene (10^th) after Nikita Kuznetcov had bubbled the money in 12^th place.

Koon’s cash was worth a quarter of a million dollars and he was followed from the felt by Austrian Klemens Roiter for $319,000 in eighth place and Russian pro Artur Martirosian. The legendary online player, who has more GGMillion$ wins on GGPoker than any other player in the world, cashed for $400,000 in seventh place and the six-handed final table was reached.

When the final six were formed, it was a German player in the lead. Leon Sturm has carved out quite the reputation over the past few years and his stack of 5.68 million chips equated to 95 big blinds, a long way clear of his nearest challengers, the aforementioned Camosci (4.57m/76BB) and the eventual winner Nguyen with 3.36m, or 56 big blinds. The other three still in contention for the win were Turkish player Orpen Kisacikoglu (39BB), Belarussian Mikita Badziakouski (27BB) and Seth Davies, who began with just 16 big blinds.

Davies Denied Deal

Mikita Badziakouski was the first player to lose his stack in the final table showdown. All-in with a suited six-seven, the Belarussian fell to Leon Sturm, who had woken up with pocket aces to reduce the field to five players. Badziakouski’s run was worth $500,000. However, Sturm, so often the conqueror in these types of events, went from winning the previous hand to go second in chips to out on the rail in fifth place for $627,300.

All-in with ace-jack against the pocket sixes of Seth Davies after a run of hands where the young German bled chips then lost that key coinflip. The American’s sixes held through a teasing board of Q-9-3-3-T which left Sturm on the outside looking in. Soon, Orpen Kisacikoglu was out too, with the Turkish player all-in with ace-four of hearts. Well behind Nguyen’s pocket eights, the board of K-T-2-3-2 did nothing to help Kisacikoglu as he left with $825,600 in fourth place.

Three-handed, the remaining players discussed a deal but the numbers wouldn’t add up and as Nguyen declared ‘I want to play’, his opponents agreed, especially Camosci. As it happened, both of those players ended up battling for the title, as Davies busted in third place for $1,060,250. All-in with ace-seven on a board of K-8-7-7-J, the American had trips but ran into a cold deck, with Camosci showing eight-seven for a turned full house.

Nguyen Wins as Camosci Crumbles Late

“The only problem is you gotta take a photo with that sh*tty hand!”

Down to two, the Italian held the chip lead with 10.3 million chips to Nguyen’s 8.4m, but that wasn’t the way it stayed. Camosci dropped to just four million chips at one point, only to battle back to almost level. Nguyen, undaunted, made a flush then a turned pair to leave the Italian on fumes. Down to eight big blinds, Camosci called off his stack with king-four and was a dog against Nguyen’s king-five. Incredibly, a four on the river led to a lucrative double-up.

Now on 20 bigs, Camosci perhaps had confidence that he could turn the tide, unaware that one final wave would send him under. All-in with pocket eights against Nguyen’s jack-three, the fates were against the at-risk Italian this time as a flop of 6-4-2 was eventually followed by a deadly five on the river that completed the winning hand of a straight for Nguyen. The German, who was an online player almost exclusively until six months ago, had won and his fellow player Jason Koon congratulated him.

“Smile, you just won a €100k [event]” Koon said, before clapping, his applause added to by the others still in the room. “The only problem is you gotta take a photo with that sh*tty hand!”

Nguyen didn’t mind one bit.

“It’s just fun for me, I enjoy it. It’s definitely the most fun to play against strong players,” Nguyen told PokerStars after the event, before describing the deal he turned down. “I kind of felt that even though it was three-handed, there was so much heads up afterwards, I just wanted to play.”

It might just have been the best decision of Christopher Nguyen’s poker career to date.

With thanks to PokerStars, the home of the European Poker Tour for photos and direct quotes from Monte Carlo. Follow the PokerStars Blog through the EPT Monte Carlo series.