Despite being all-in and at-risk a total of five times on the final day of the EPT Barcelona Main Event, the card gods were the most friendly to Stephen Song. At the end of it all, in poetic fashion, Song cracked Andrew Hulme’s pocket eights with ace-seven to win the 20th Anniversary Golden Shard trophy and an incredible €1,290,386.
Song is a true poker grinder with a WSOP bracelet, six WSOP Circuit rings, and nearly $8,000,000 in live tournament earnings across an insane 255 live tournament scores. His 13th career documented live win is the most special, giving him a new career-high score nearly two months after his 57th-placed finish in the WSOP Main Event.
“You just keep showing up and eventually you’re just going to win, right? Just mathematically, it has to happen,” Song said in an interview with PokerNews.
“I will say that my mom said she was praying for me very hard during this tournament. I’ve been sun-running the whole seven days, so I’m definitely thankful for that.”
Despite Song’s incredible list of accomplishments, which includes winning the 2022 Global Poker Index (GPI) Player of the Year award, the New York City-born superstar claims that this title is his most important victory yet.
“This, for sure, is number one. WPT Prime (Las Vegas, 2022) was awesome, too. My family was there, and my mom was there, so that was incredible. But this is an EPT Main Event, there’s just not that many of them. And to now be able to say I’m an EPT winner is just unreal.
The 2024 version of the EPT Barcelona Main Event was one of the biggest European Poker Tour Main Events of all-time, with 1,975 total entries creating a massive prize pool of €9,578,750. 287 players cashed the event, earning at least €8,700, with an original top prize of €1,512,000. Song and Hulme agreed to a heads-up deal.
2024 EPT Barcelona Main Event Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Country | Prize |
| 1st | Stephen Song | USA | €1,290,386 |
| 2nd | Andrew Hulme | UK | €1,165,614 |
| 3rd | Marius-Catalin Pertea | Romania | €674,150 |
| 4th | Rania Nasreddine | USA | €518,600 |
| 5th | David Coleman | USA | €398,950 |
| 6th | Boris Kuzmanovic | Croatia | €306,900 |
| 7th | Alexandre Fournier | Canada | €236,100 |
| 8th | Jianwei Lin | China | €181,600 |
| 9th | Fabiano Kovalski | Brazil | €139,750 |
The EPT Barcelona Main Event was highlighted by being an event full of international flavor. There were seven different nations represented at the final table and an incredible 82 countries in the event. Despite not being in the top-five countries in terms of total entries, three Americans graced the final table, all finishing in the top five.
Most notably, Rania Nasreddine became just the ninth player in EPT history to make back-to-back final tables, finishing third at EPT Monte Carlo for €442,900, her previous high score. Her 4th-placed finish vaulted Nasreddine to just off the top-1,500 on the all-time money list. Should our projections be correct, she’ll also move into third place in the 2024 GPI Ladies Player of the Year race.
Legendary player David Coleman finished just behind Nasreddine in 5th place for €398,950, which should see him move up to number one in the overall GPI Player of the Year hunt, moving ahead of Jesse Lonis and Adrian Mateos. Lonis briefly held the top spot after his 8th-placed finish in the €10,300 EPT Barcelona High Roller, where he took home €104,800.
Next up on the European Poker Tour circuit is EPT Cyprus from October 9th to the 20th at the beautiful Merit Royal Diamond Hotel Casino & Spa.