Denis Zelenkin Wins the $1,100 EAPT Grand Final Cyprus ($139,000)

To conclude the 2024 Mediterranean Poker Party at the Merit Royal Diamond Hotel in Northern Cyprus, all eyes were on the final table of the $1,100 Eurasian Poker Tour Cyprus, the last tournament running in the room. Nevertheless, none of the remaining players wanted to give up, and by 4 a.m. local time, three players were still in the race for the win.

But the cards have spoken, and after an unbelievable three-way all-in and call situation where he found aces, Denis Zelenkin was crowned as the winner of the EAPT Grand Final Cyprus. He defeated a field of 855 entries and won $139,000. Eliminated at the same time, Tibor Nyuli and Iurii Zuev finished in second and third place for $93,400 and $64,000, respectively.

$1,100 EAPT Grand Final Cyprus

Rank	Player	Country	Prize
1	Denis Zelenkin	Russian Federation	$139,000
2	Tibor Nyuli	Hungary	$93,400
3	Iurii Zuev	Russian Federation	$64,000
4	Milad Langar	Iran	$48,000
5	Victor Fryda	France	$38,000
6	Achir Eldaye	Lebanon	$29,500
7	Bulent Kose	Turkey	$23,000
8	Alfredo Versace	Italy	$17,860
9	Guo Liang Wei	China	$13,500

When PokerNews asked him about his first reaction after he won, Zelenkin took his phone out of his pocket and typed a few words in Russian that Google translated as: “I am very happy. It was complicated. I put a lot of effort and was able to win”.

He was also very proud to show the picture of an old EAPT trophy that he won during EAPT Montenegro in 2017. “It’s my second trophy” he said, with a smile that never left his face.

Final Day's Action

As the final day of the Eurasian Poker Tour (EAPT) $1,100 Cyprus began, just 131 players remained from a field of 885 entrants after five starting flights. They were all hoping to be crowned as the winner of the last tournament of the Mediterranean Poker Party festival. But it didn’t take long for a lot of players to make their way to the exit, as half of the field was eliminated before the first break.

Cedric Schwaederle (129th), Dmitry Gromov (119th), Yuliyan Kolev (106th) and Tommy Nguyen (104th) were part of these players, but they secured a minimum cash-prize of $1,700. They were followed by Alessio Isaia (96th, $1,850), Joseph Mouawad (81st, $2,050), Andrey Pateychuk (74th, $2,300), Jack Sinclair (73rd, $2,300) or Bart Lybaert (58th, $2,850), who didn’t reach the second break of the day where only 45 players remained.

The field eventually went down to 24 players left and the three-table redraw on the last hand before the dinner break. After Sha Cheng Chun was eliminated in 24th place, Emre Saltik (23rd, $5,400), Nicos Sotiriou (22nd, $5,400), Patryk Szysz (19th, $6,200) and Renato Minicuci (16th, $7,200) were also sent to the rail in just a few minutes.

As the final table approached, new players were eliminated from the tournament, such as Ahmet Akyun, who lost a big flip and found himself with less than a small blind left. He managed to multiply his stack by sixteen during the following hands but was eventually eliminated by Victor Fryda in 11th place for $10,700.

Aylar Lie was next to put her tournament at risk, but with queen-jack, she ran into ace-king, failed to improve her hand, and missed the final table.

Guo Liang Wei became the first player of the final table to be eliminated (9th, $13,500) in a three-way all-in and call situation. Then, Alfredo Versace (8th, $17,860) with the two blinds he had left couldn’t do much against Iurii Zuev’s king-jack. Bulent Kose was not more successful, losing all his chips with eight-seven against eights to finish in seventh place for $23,000. After a new break, it was Achir Eldaye's turn to leave the table (6th, $29,500). This time, he had eights, but Tibor Nyuli with ace-king hit two pair.

Very little action was seen during the next two hours, as nobody wanted to be eliminated so close to the trophy. However, after he kept folding, Fryda almost ran out of chips and eventually jammed with a pair on the flop. Zuev, however, had two pairs, so Fryda finished in 5th place for $38,000. He was soon followed at the payout desk by Milad Langar (4th, $48,000), who left Denis Zelenkin, Tibor Nyuli, and Iurii Zuev to play for the win of the tournament.

Nyuli doubled up once against Zuev to close the gap with Zelenkin. But all the chips eventually went in the middle in a three-way all-in and call situation. Zelenkin had aces and the biggest stack, and the board didn’t change anything, so he was crowned the winner of the tournament.