Siarhei Alontsau raised to 300,000 from the cutoff with only Pedro Marques calling from the big blind.
The flop came down 9♣J♦Q♣ and Marques checked the action to Alontsau. Alontsau thought briefly before overbet shoving for 2,450,000. Marques snap-called to put Alontsau at risk.
Siarhei Alontsau: A♠A♥
Pedro Marques: J♣9♠
Alontsau had the overpair but Marques was currently in the lead with bottom two pair. Alontsau needed to find an ace or some counterfeiting two pair to stay in the tournament.
The 4♣ came on the turn which took away one of Alontsau's outs, and when the 10♥ hit the river, the pot was sent over to Marques, and Alontsau was the day's first elimination.
The record-breaking 2024 PokerStars European Poker Tour Prague €5,300 Main Event has reached its climax, as the final six players prepare to battle for poker glory and the monumental €1,146,500 first-place prize. From an unprecedented field of 1,458 entries, these six contenders have maneuvered their way to the final table after enduring five grueling days of poker at the luxurious Hilton Prague.
Each has already secured a minimum payout of €233,050, but today’s ultimate goal is to hoist the coveted EPT trophy and claim one of the biggest prizes in European poker history. Today, one of these six players will etch their name in poker history.
Romania’s Paul Runcan enters the final table with a commanding stack of 18,025,000 (120 big blinds), putting him in the driver’s seat as play resumes. Runcan has been a dominant force throughout the tournament, leveraging his big stack on Day 5 to outmaneuver opponents with a mix of well-timed aggression and fearless bluffs. This performance has already earned Runcan the largest cash of his career, and with such a significant lead, he’s in prime position to close out the victory.
Final Table Seat Draw & Chip Counts
Seat
Player
Country
Chip Count
Big Blinds
1
Siarhei Alontsau
Belarus
3,150,000
21
2
Paul Runcan
Romania
18,025,000
120
3
Anton Bergstrom
Sweden
6,725,000
45
4
Pedro Marques
Portugal
9,225,000
62
5
Barak Oz
Israel
4,500,000
30
6
Jaehyung Park
South Korea
2,100,000
14
Paul Runcan
Trailing Runcan is Portugal’s Pedro Marques, who brings 9,225,000 (62 big blinds) to the final table. Marques, one of Portugal’s most accomplished players with over $4.7 million in live tournament winnings, is no stranger to being in this kind of situation. With two EPT titles and a history of success on the big stage, he has both the experience and skill to challenge for the title.
Sweden’s Anton Bergstrom is poised for a historic run as he looks to add a live EPT Main Event title to his two online EPT championships. Bergstrom starts the day with 6,725,000 chips (45 big blinds) and remains a serious threat despite his relatively shorter stack compared to the leaders.
Barak Oz
Israel’s Barak Oz (4,500,000), Belarus’ Siarhei Alontsau (3,150,000), and South Korea’s Jaehyung Park (2,100,000) round out the final six. Park, the short stack with just 14 big blinds, has shown tremendous resilience throughout the tournament and will be looking for a quick double-up to stay in contention. Alontsau and Oz, with 21 and 30 big blinds respectively, still have room to maneuver but will need to carefully pick their spots as they aim to climb the leaderboard.
Remaining Payouts
Place
Player
Country
Prize
1
€1,146,500
2
€716,950
3
€512,100
4
€393,950
5
€303,000
6
€233,050
7
Tjenno Eskes
Netherlands
€179,250
8
Siegfried Kapeller
Austria
€137,900
9
Danut Chisu
Romania
€106,050
Play will resume today at 12:30 p.m. local time with just under 30 minutes remaining in Level 26 with blinds of 100,000/150,000 and a 150,000 big blind ante. The stakes couldn’t be higher, with every hand potentially worth thousands of euros as the remaining players eye the escalating payouts.
The final day promises thrilling action as these six players battle it out for one of the most prestigious titles in poker. Follow PokerNews throughout the day for comprehensive live updates and catch the action on the official live stream, running on a 30-minute delay. By the end of the day, the EPT Prague Main Event will have crowned its champion—don’t miss a moment!
Jaehyung Park calls himself a semi-pro. “We don’t have professional poker in Korea,” he explains after mentioning that he really only focuses on the game and has no other source of income.
Park is guaranteed to pass $700,000 in career live cashes when he hands in his final table payout slip. Until this month, he’d played exclusively in Asia, mostly in his hometown Seoul but also in Manila and Hanoi.
He picked Prague for his EPT debut, stating: “I feel very lucky, it was a very good decision.”
He says his appetite for the EPT is quickly growing and he is already contemplating visiting more European stops next year.
Before then, the 40-year-old will have a chance to secure the all-time best EPT result for South Korea. He’s just become the second Korean finalist in the tour’s 20-year history and hopes to top Gab Yong Kim’s 4th place from March 2022 – also at Hilton Prague.
Outside poker, Park said he enjoys building Lego and watching animated movies and cartoons.
Originally from Ramat Gan, Barak Oz lives near the beach in Tel Aviv, Israel, a sweet spot for an avid wakesurfer. Oz calls himself a semi-professional poker player, who used to play more frequently during his student years but now combines the game with his job as a data analyst.
The 36-year-old said he typically makes three or four poker trips every year. The Czech Republic has treated him especially well in 2024. He picked up his career-biggest prize of €73,850 11 months ago in Rozvadov and now he's already guaranteed a six-figure score here at EPT Prague.
"I love Prague," Oz said, praising the city, the EPT Main Event structure, and the tournament organization.
Oz admits he feels a little nervous when thinking of the final table payouts, but he puts it to the back of his mind immediately when he takes his seat at the table. He is then entirely in the zone. He's also well aware that only Uri Gilboa has won an EPT title for Israel but is doing his best not to think that far ahead.
Any prize from the final table will come in handy for a man planning his wedding. He doesn't have a date confirmed just yet, but said it will take place sometime in the next few months in Israel. Oz confirmed he's ready to spend some winnings to make it spectacular.
Pedro Marques has become a very well-known face on the EPT, having been on the circuit for 10 years. He made the final table of EPT Barcelona in 2018, where he came fourth for €698,369. But that was left in the shade when he made the final of the PSPC in the Bahamas in January 2023, where fifth place was worth more than $1.25 million.
The Portuguese pro is now at another major final table in a PokerStars event, having silently amassed a stack of 9,225,000. “I’m really happy and I will try my best to do even better this time,” Marques says.
Marques is a former psychology student and used to make his money as an online Omaha cash game player, but has dedicated almost all of his time to online and live MTTs over the last decade. He is undoubtedly the most experienced live player at the final table, whose $4.7 million career earnings puts the 31-year-old in a solid second in the Portugal all-time money list, behind only the high roller reg Joao Vieira.
New ground could be broken on the European Poker Tour on Sunday when Sweden's Anton Bergstrom sits down at the final table in Prague. Despite his best documented EPT performance so far being a sixth-place finish in Barcelona on Season 2, Bergstrom has this week revealed a secret. The Swedish player, who is 39 years old, admitted that he is the previously-anonymous PokerStars player "WhatIfGod".
This is important news because back during the Covid years, PokerStars hosted two EPT Online tournaments, which are generally accepted as part of the official EPT canon. "WhatIfGod" won both EPT Online Main Events, making him one of only four people who have two EPT titles. Here in Prague, he has the best chance yet of becoming the first three-time EPT winner.
Bergstrom is a professional player of many years standing. He was only 20 when he broke onto the scene with that final table appearance in Barcelona and before this week, it remained his biggest-ever live score. But WhatIfGod is an online tournament crusher. The first EPT Online victory came with a prize of more than $1 million. The second came with a $364K prize. He has three WCOOP titles, including two from the 2014 series, and five SCOOP wins. Rarely a major series goes by without him visiting the winner's circle at least once.
Bergstrom, from Lund, near Malmo in Sweden, has already more than doubled his entire documented live tournament earnings thanks to his run to the last day here. And if he adds the title to his EPT Online double, he'll enter entirely uncharted territory.
What a ride for Romanian player Paul Runcan in this EPT Main Event Prague 2024. The 33-year-old took the lead once the field was down to 3 tables and stayed on top of chip counts ever since. He started the day chip leading the 16 players left and will now start the 6-handed play with a huge stack of 18,025,000 chips.
Runcan has been having a breakout year on the live scene. All of his top five scores – all five-figure – came in 2024. Now he's guaranteed to achieve another milestone with a six-figure minimum payout. The Romanian player made his debut playing low-stakes poker in England almost ten years ago, mainly in Nottingham where he lives. His first significant results in the European scene arrived on a side event at EPT Paris this year and his first five-figure win then in Monte-Carlo with two 10th places in FPS High Roller and EPT Mystery Bounty.
Now a regular on the European circuit, Runcan is travelling around France, Italy, and other European stops. With only $270,000 live poker earnings so far, Runcan will at least double his total in career and he is a serious contender for the title.
Siarhei Alontsau says there are three people responsible for his incredible Main Event run here in Prague. The first is his poker mentor who taught him the game when he was a teenager in Belarus. Alontsau was too young to play himself, but he’d sit patiently behind his friend, watching and learning. Now his mentor is watching him on the live stream and the two speak on every tournament break.
The second person is two-time EPT winner and Belarusian poker star Mikalai Pobal. Alontsau and his wife went to stay with friends at their summer cottage in Belarus, where Pobal happens to be a neighbour. “My friend told me, look, Siarhei, this guy won several times,” Alontsau explains. “So I decided, OK, I'm going to
participate in an EPT as well.”
The third person is his wife, who not only gave Alontsau the green light to use some of his savings to come and play but who has been alongside him cheering him on every step of the six-day journey.
You won’t find any results online for Alontsau, but he says he’s got plenty of experience. When he was 18 he entered a beginners tournament in the Belarusian Federation of Poker and won it. He then had a decision – go pro or get a career, and he chose the latter. “Playing poker professionally is not easy,” he says. “You can have a birthday and a funeral on the same day.”
For 12 years he’s worked in information security, helping to prevent online hacker attacks. He’s not had much MTT experience since that decision, but he says he’s played lots of Sit & Gos, adding: “I’m well informed about ICM and push-fold equity.”
That puts him in good stead at the final table, where he’s guaranteed by far the biggest poker win of his life. But he says poker has never been about the money. He just loves the process. “The thing I'm most proud of is that across all six days, I've never been all-in when I was behind,” he says. “Winning the title would mean much more to me than the prizes."
