The Frenchman – Corentin Ropert, who satellited into the EPT Prague €25K Single Day High Roller tournament, has eventually taken it down for his career’s largest live cash of €277,560 and the beautiful spade-shaped trophy along with the prestige accompanying an EPT high roller winner.
Entering the €25,000 event was a somewhat unusual experience for Ropert who usually plays tournaments worth €2,000 or less. Ropert’s poker journey in Prague did not start well. He had a lousy run during the festival’s initial stages and so he lost his motivation as the event progressed.
Demotivated enough, he then read about Thomas Boivin who won the €25K Single Day High Roller that took place this past week. Boivin had satellited into the high roller tournament to eventually win it and take home €375,520. That was the second-ever €25,000 event Boivin had ever played.
Inspired by Boivin’s amazing story, Ropert thought, perhaps I can do that too? He too satellited his way into the €25K High Roller to eventually outlast its field and win his career’s largest score.
In this high roller event, Ropert defeated a tough field that had several big names, such as Steve O’Dwyer, Charlie Carrel and Timothy Adams who could not make it to the money, a prizepool of €816,340 built from 34 entries. Ropert’s previous best score was a 4th place finish and a €60,100 ($81,403) back in 2014 at EPT 10 in Deauville. So, the determination of Ropert finally paid off.
After Addamo was sent to the rails in 3rd, it was heads-up between Japan’s Tsugunari Toma and Ropert who held an almost 4:1 chip lead heads-up against Toma. However, the former fought back to get the stacks almost to even. However, a mistimed shove from Toma into the flopped trips of Ropert meant victory to the Frenchman. A winning hand of Ah-5h gave full house and locked the win for Ropert and Toma had to settle for €191,840 for his runner-up finish in the event.
Final Table Results:
1 | Corentin Ropert | €277,560 |
2 | Tsugunari Toma | €191,840 |
3 | Michael Addamo | €122,450 |
4 | Dietrich Fast | €93,880 |
5 | Norbert Szecsi | €73,470 |
6 | Pavel Plesuv | €57,140 |