Mike Watson became the champion of the EPT Monte Carlo main event
On May 6, Canadian poker pro Mike Watson became the champion of the EPT Monte Carlo main event with a buy-in of 5,300 EUR. He managed to beat 1,097 rivals and earn 749,425 EUR. This is Watson’s second victory in the main event of the EPT. He became only the third player to have more than one victory in the main EPT tournaments. Vicky Coren-Mitchell and Belarusian Mikalai Pobal have the same achievement.
“I am very pleased with this achievement. It’s definitely something I’m excited about. This is, of course, a huge result. It is very difficult to win two major tournaments in one round. Perhaps this is my main achievement in poker, which I am very happy about,” Watson said after the victory.
Watson won his first EPT victory at PokerStars Caribbean Adventure 2016. Then he became the first of 928 players and earned almost 730,000 USD. Watson also won the 2008 WPT Bellagio Cup, when he earned about 1.7 million USD. The player’s tournament earnings are almost 20 million USD. According to this indicator, he ranks 5th among Canadian players.
Mike Watson and Leonard Maue remained in the heads-up
The main event lasted 7 days at the Monte-Carlo Sporting Casino. Two launch flights took place on April 30 and May 1, and the main actions lasted for another five days. The prizes included 159 best players, including Orpen Kisacikoglu (40th place), PokerStars Players Championship champion Ramon Colillas (32nd), runner-up PCA Main Event 2023 Pedro Neves (20th), bracelet holder Pieter Aerts (17th), EPT Sochi ME champion 2021 Artur Martirosyan (14th) and the owner of the bracelet Jason Wheeler (7th).
The chip leader of the final day was Leo Worthington-Leese, who was quickly passed by Watson. Soon, the Canadian with pocket jacks outplayed a couple of dozen of Arnaud Enselme (6th place) and increased the gap. The next to fall was Samy Boujmala, who lost twice to Worthington-Leese and took 5th place. Joachim Haraldstad put his last 6 BB with K-6, Watson made a call with 10-8. Watson collected trips on the flop, and flush on the river.
Shortly after Haraldstad’s departure, Worthington-Leese went all-in on the flop (9-7-3) from 10-5. Against him was Leonard Maue with two jacks. A five fell on the turn, but a six on the river buried the Briton’s hopes for the title.
- Michael Watson — 749,425 EUR
- Leonard Maue — 697,175 EUR
- Leo Worthington-Leese — 397,450 EUR
- Joachim Haraldstad — 305,750 EUR
- Samy Boujmala — 235,150 EUR
- Arnaud Enselme — 180,900 EUR
- Jason Wheeler — 139,150 EUR
- Arunas Sapitavicius — 107,050 EUR
- Maduka Meragal — 82,350 EUR
Mike Watson and Leonard Maue remained in the heads-up. The first had 17.5 million chips at his disposal, the second had 15,425,000. The players decided to split the money, with the exception of 36,000 EUR, which went to the champion. By the final hand, the Canadian had twice as many chips. In the last hand Watson had 10-9, Maue had 4-3. A 10-7-5-A-7 was handed out on the board, and Watson became a two-time EPT champion.