PokerStars’ premiere live stop, the European Poker Tour (EPT), recently concluded its first event of the year! The prestigious series running at Casino Sochi from March 19-28 was the second major series to be held at the venue this month. Earlier this month, Casino Sochi hosted the World Poker Tour (WPT) Russia where Maksim Sekretarev took down the Main Event for a payout of $160,694.
Headlining the EPT Sochi 2021 was the ₽175,000 ($2,311) Main Event that found a champion in the 23-year-old Russian pro, Artur Martirosian, who came out on top of a strong 852-entry field to win a whopping ₽24,633,000 (~$325,316) and his career-first EPT title. After his massive main event win, Martirosian told the EPT reporters, “I have always wanted to win the EPT title,” and added, “The trophy has such a cool design – it was one of the reasons why I did not think of cutting a deal.”
Martirosian is a well-known online crusher and the victory happens to be his third live tournament title. His resume is impressive enough and boasts over $1,165,917 in live tournament winnings.
The 2021 EPT Sochi Main Event was a huge success and created a prize pool of ₽131,899,810 on the back of 852 entries across three starting flights. Interestingly, out of the 127 places that were paid, 106 were Russians. However, the 8-handed final table of the event had two foreigners, namely Serbia’s Vladimir Bozinovic(7th for ₽3,283,000) and Turkey’s Mukhtar Taysi (3rd for ₽10,551,800).
In the heads-up battle, Martirosian clashed with fellow countryman Vladislav Naumov, with the former eventually emerging victorious. For Naumov, this was his second consecutive finish in the EPT Main Event. He had finished sixth in the EPT Sochi Main Event in October last year for ₽3,929,100 ($50,267). Naumov missed out on the coveted title for the second time with his A-6 failing to beat Martirosian’s A-9. He settled for the runner-up prize money worth ₽14,957,600 ($197,537).
Final Table Payouts
- Artur Martirosian – ₽24,633,000 (~$325,316)
- Vladislav Naumov – ₽14,957,600 (~$197,537)
- Mukhtar Taysi – ₽10,551,800 (~$139,352)
- Fanis Khafizov – ₽7,914,200 (~$104,519)
- Yuriy Brechalov – ₽6,237,000 (~$82,369)
- Anton Smirnov – ₽4,669,000 (~$61,661)
- Vladimir Bozinovic – ₽3,283,000 (~$43,356)
- Roman Gadzhiev – ₽2,307,900 (~$30,479)