Jorge Abreu Wins EPT Paris Main Event after Epic Comeback

With experienced German Felix Schneiders, Ukrainian tournament specialist Nazar Buhaiov and the eventual winner, Portugal’s Jorge Abreu, all in action, the EPT Paris Main Event was one to remember. With the winner taking home $1.3m, and many another big names cashing for seven figures in the heart of Europe, PokerStars also announced their recent partnership with FanDuel during a busy week for one of poker’s leading operators.

Bumper Field in France

With a mammoth 1,474 total entries, and a prizepool of over $7.2 million, the EPT Paris Main Event caused quite a stir on the poker circuit. The French capital featured dozens of side events, each awarding their own ‘spadie’ trophy. However, the glittering gold shard was reserved for Portuguese player Jorge Abreu after five days of intense competition saw him crowned an EPT winner for the first time.

By the time the final table of eight was reached, a lot of drama had already gone down. Jorge Abreu had led superbly after three days play, but had needed to repair his stack on Day 4. That he’d done, and how. By the time French player Sami Bechahed busted in eighth place for $160,000, only one French player remained in the battle, and Thierry Gogniat was fifth in chips on 20 big blinds, far away from the chip leader Abreu, who had a massive stack of 150 bigs himself.

Play began quickly on the final day with Gogniat and Tomas Jozonis the first victims of Abreu’s brutal day of domination. Gogniat was all-in with ace-jack, while Jozonis held pockey kings, but Abreu’s ace-eight of spades flopped the nut flush draw and quickly converted on the three of spades turn, eliminating Gogniat for $208,000 and Jozonis for $270,500 in one fell swoop.

Bye-Bye Buhaiov

The Ukrainian player Nazar Buhaiov was the next to leave, eliminated in fifth place for a score of $351,600. All-in with eight-seven on a flop of 8-6-4, he was well behind Enrico Coppola’s pocket eights which had flopped top set with the last eight in the deck. After a king and ten landed on turn and river, the field was down to four and the Italian was in the race for the title.

The Finnish player Casimir Seire ran short to bust in fourth place for a mammoth result nevertheless. Banking $457,150 for his deep run, the Finn was all-in and at-risk with the made hand of pocket tens, but Jorge Abreu called with ace-queen of spades and this time, no flush draw was needed, an ace on the flop enough to send the action to the podium places.

Down to three, it was Coppola who missed out on the last duel for the title, and in unlucky fashion too. Coppola called off his stack with pocket jacks after Abreu had shoved with queen-ten but a ten on both the flop and  the river saw the Portuguese player usurp the Italian, sending him home with $594,300 and taking a huge 9:1 chip lead into the final fight.

Schneiders Rail Wins But Felix Fails

“I don’t see myself as an EPT champion!”

It wasn’t long before another Portuguese winner celebrated EPT glory. Schneiders, while far behind, was still desperately unlucky to lose the title how he did. On a board showing J-6-3-8, the German check-shoved brilliantly with pocket queens and got the call from Abreu with jack-eight. An eight on the river turned the tables and gave Abreu the win at  Schneiders’ expense.

While the German cashed for $832,000 as runner-up, the winner was Abreu who took home an amazing top prize of $1,332,200.

“I don’t see myself as an EPT champion!” he told reporters afterwards. “There’s a lot of luck involved in this event, obviously. And for you to get to the final table, for you to win, you have to be really lucky. I really want to focus myself on being the best I can. Not just with my work, poker, but with the people around me. It means a lot to me to be able to be here, and I’m enjoying it, but I really try to not focus on the luck I had because I’m not taking full responsibility for this win.”

Ever humble, the modest Portuguese was overwhelmed with gratitude and credited his fortune again.

“The poker gods helped me a lot, you know what I mean? What I want is to do the best I can, see what I can get better at, because I made a lot of mistakes throughout these six days. I’m an EPT champion, but I don’t hold myself to that. But, obviously, it feels incredible to be able to have the luck to be here.”

Lead photography by award-winning photographer Danny Maxwell for PokerStars, the home of the European Poker Tour.