Two tales with a partypoker connection as the partypoker sponsored Eurasian Poker Tour comes to a close in Prague, and party’s partner, Fedor Holz, invests in esports giant Team Envy.
Prague and poker at Christmas go together like spume and sputum after a night playing with Absinthe. It’s only a matter of time before par
typoker’s MILLIONS brand lays down a peg or two, but until then, we have the partypoker Eurasian Poker Tour (EAPT) Prague.
The Grandior Hotel Prague sounds like the sort of gaff that has a stiff upper lip type of guy playing the works of Chopin on the ivories, but last week it was the home to some of poker’s pot-bellied pigs.
The €1,100 buy-in EAPT Prague Main Event hit the €500k Guarantee after 825 entrants created a €783,750 prize pool. The talented Belgian Jerome Sgorrano hit all the right notes to bank the first prize of €126,500.
It’s been a hell of a year for Sgoranno who won the WPT DeepStacks Main Event in Brussels in November and also earned a gold ring by hammering 559 entrants in the €550 buy-in World Series of Poker Circuit (WSOPC) Monster Stack at the King’s Casino, Rozvadov.
Sgoranno’s all-time live tournament earnings are caressing the $819,942 mark after his latest sweep.
Final Table Results
1. Jerome Sgorrano – €126,500
2. Josef Snejberg – €106,500
3. Igor Astashkin – €62,000
4. Rasmum Vogt – €45,000
5. Jaroslaw Lipien – €33,000
6. Neculai Macovei – €25,000
7. Viktor Ustimov – €18,000
8. Krzysztof Dulwoski – €12,600
9. Ionnis Ntousakis – €10,950
Other notables who had to heave waterfalls of disappointment were the former PokerStars Team Pros Maxim Lykov (11th) and Salvatore Bonavena (14th). Denmark’s Morten Mortensen finished 19th.
Johannes Becker Wins the €25,500 Super High Roller
With the PokerStars Championship Prague high rollers and their groupies in town, partypoker took the risk of hosting a €1m guaranteed €25,000 Super High Roller.
The risk paid off.
71 entrants created a €1.7m prize pool, and it was an all-German affair with Johannes Becker beating Christoph Vogelsang in heads-up action. Becker’s reward was a €500,000 Christmas present.
Becker is another lad having a sterling year. He finished second in the €50,000 Poker Player’s Championship (PPC) at the World Series of Poker (WSOP) this summer, netting $862,649.
Final Table Results
1. Johannes Becker – €500,000
2. Christoph Vogelsang – €361,250
3. Mustapha Kanit – €250,000
4. Sergio Aido – €200,000
5. Julian Thomas – €150,000
6. Igor Kurganov – €100,000
7. Dominik Nitsche – €75,000
8. Martin Kabrhel – €50,000
Andrey Novak Wins the €5,300 High Roller
We bring down the curtain on the EAPT with the results of the €5,300 High Roller.
The €500k guaranteed event crawled over the finishing line, with 109 entrants creating a €517,750 prize pool. The Ukrainian Andrey Novak outlasted a sick final table featuring a whole host of megastars.
Final Table Results
1. Andrey Novak – €140,000
2. Ludovic Geilich – €87,750
3. Patrick Leonard – €62,500
4. Viktor Kudinov – €50,000
5. Simon Ravnsbaek – €40,000
6. Dzmitry Urbanovich – €32,500
7. JC Alvarado – €25,000
8. Sergio Aido – €20,000
9. Juha Helppi – €15,000
These two monsters came close: David Peters (10th) and Morten Mortensen (13th).
Fedor Holz Invests in Team Envy
Have you ever wondered what Fedor Holz does with his money?
“I like to invest in things that I’m emotionally connected to because I feel that I contribute the most but I also get the most out of it,” Holz told ESPN this past weekend.
Holz was chewing the fat with the American sports broadcaster after the $27m man opened up about his investment in the esports outfit Team Envy. Tarsier-eyed poker fans may recall that Holz wore a Team Envy t-shirt during his WSOP bracelet win in 2016.
The partypoker partner didn’t disclose how many Reddies he has invested in the esports team but did say that Elliot Roe is helping him, and his friend – esports star Nathan “NBK” Schmitt – to create online courses for esports athletes who use the Primed Mind app.
It was NBK who introduced Holz to the CEO of Team Envy, Mike “Hastro” Rufail, leading to his decision to invest. You can see how Holz feels a connection to esports athletes. The German star is still only 24-years-old, so he has a lot of experience to pass onto the younger element of the esports world when it comes to handling the fame and the money that tags along for the ride.
