The 2024 EPT continued its poker journey for this calendar year with EPT Cyprus in October. Set in the beautiful Merit Royal Diamond Hotel Casino & Spa on the Turkish side of Cyprus, it was the second time the EPT made it to Cyprus, with the first time being last year in 2023.
It was a highly successful series with several big events and winners. The series attracted the normal crowd of players from all parts of Europe. But with its Mediterranean location, it also brought in more players from Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia than usual to make for a diverse mix of poker talent.
After nearly two weeks, it all culminated in the $5,300 buy-in Main Event, which was certainly one to remember.
EPT Cyprus Main Event Results
The $5,300 EPT Cyprus Main Event drew a large field of 1,284 entries which generated a prize pool of $6,227,400 and played out over a few days on the ever popular EPT live stream.
| Place | Player | Country | Prize Money |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Oliver Weis | Germany | $1,030,000 |
| 2 | Georgios Tsouloftas | Cyprus | $642,300 |
| 3 | Mikhail Shalamov | Russia | $459,000 |
| 4 | Andriy Lyubovetskiy | Ukraine | $353,100 |
| 5 | Bobby James | United Kingdom | $271,400 |
| 6 | Anton Wigg | Sweden | $208,720 |
| 7 | Anton Kraous | Bulgaria | $160,500 |
| 8 | Andrea Dato | Italy | $123,400 |
Play went down to a final table of eight where eight unique countries were represented. Play would stop on the penultimate day when there were six players left to resume on a final day of six-handed play.
Oliver Weis of Germany held a large chip lead entering the final day with 185 big blinds, which was triple the second largest of Mikhail Shalamov of Russia who had 61 big blinds. Bobby James of the United Kingdom was third with 52 big blinds and then there was a drop off to the three shorter stacks.
The final day did not go exactly by the book. The shortest stack, Cyprus local Georgios Tsouloftas, rose up and outlasted the other players to directly challenge Weis. He did more than challenge as he actually became the favorite to win by taking a large chip lead in heads-up play.
But Weis was able to battle back to regain the advantage and eventually come out on top to confirm his victory and win the $1,030,000 grand prize.
Winner Profile
Oliver Weis is an extremely accomplished player and is a worthy winner of an event such as this. Hailing from Grenzach-Whylen, Germany, he is no stranger to big results.
This can be seen from the fact that the $1,030,000 first place prize is not in fact his largest career score. That honor goes to the $1,050,978 prize he won back in February in EPT Paris when he won a 373 entry high roller event. His third largest career score is also from 2024, which makes this year the German’s best by a considerable margin.
In total, he has over $3 million in career tournament earnings. But all of these accolades are about live poker only, when he may actually be an even more accomplished online player, using the moniker “sk2ll_m0dR”.
Weis’s win is another feather in the cap for German poker, which has a long and illustrious history. However, it has taken a slight dip in the last few years, compared to the Germany’s domination of poker from the mid to late 2010s.
EPT Cyprus Main Event Odds and Ends
- EPT Cyprus is the 4th of 5 scheduled EPT events this year.
- The Cyprus Main Event was the 2nd largest of the 2024 EPT season, larger than EPT Paris or EPT Monte Carlo and only behind EPT Barcelona.
- Eight unique countries were represented at the final table