Despite squaring off against both the World Series of Poker Paradise in the Bahamas and the World Poker Tour World Championship in Las Vegas, the €5,300 main event of the 2024 European Poker Tour Prague festival managed to attract a massive field of 1,458 entries. This set a new turnout record for the tournament, which was being held for the 17th time since debuting in 2007.

The 2023 running of this event had been the largest so far with 1,285 entries. This latest showing amounted to a 13.5 percent year-over-year increase.

After two starting flights and five more days of combined field action inside of the Hilton Hotel Prague, Portugal’s Pedro Marques emerged victorious with the title and the top prize of €963,450 ($1,021,257 USD). This was the second-largest tournament payday for the 31-year-old, who previously earned $1,251,500 as the fifth-place finisher in the 2023 PokerStars Players No-Limit Hold’em Championship.

“This is huge for me. I’ve been playing poker for 10 years and it’s an amazing feeling. I hope one day everybody in this room can have this feeling because it’s great,” Marques told PokerStars reporters after coming out on top.

With this latest seven-figure score, Marques has grown his recorded earnings to nearly $6 million. He remains in second place on Portugal’s all-time money list, trailing only three-time bracelet winner Joao Vieira ($14 million).

This huge victory came with not only a trophy and a pile of money, but also with 1,920 Card Player Player of the Year points. This was Marques’ first POY-qualified score of 2024, but it alone was enough to move him inside the top 250 in the overall standings presented by Global Poker.

The prize pool worth more than $7.4 million in this event was paid out amongst the top 216 finishers. Big names that ran deep included Nikita Kuznetsov (45th), recent World Poker Tour Rock’n’Roll Poker Open third-place finisher Florian Ribouchon (41st), and 2023 UK and Ireland Poker Tour Nottingham champion Vincent Meli (18th).

The final day began with Romania’s Paul Runcan in the lead and just six contenders remaining. Marques sat on the second-largest stack when play resumed.

The first knockout of the day was earned by Marques, when his flopped two pair held against the pocket aces of Siarhei Alontsau (6th – $247,033). Anton Bergstrom (5th – $321,180) was the next to hit the rail, with the Swede’s A-10 losing a preflop race against the pocket fours of Runcan. Bergstrom was reportedly revealed as the player behind the ‘WhatIfGod’ screen name, which has captured two EPT Online titles including the 2020 EPT Online main event which paid out over $1 million up top.

The next elimination saw Marques shove from the button with J8 suited, with a couple of the shorter stacks in the blinds. Barak Oz made the call with A7 and was ahead, but Marques flopped a pair of eights and held from there to narrow the field to three. Oz earned $417,587 as the fourth-place finisher.

Jaehyung Park’s run in this event came to an end in third place ($542,826). The Korean player’s A6 was unable to come from behind against the AK of Runcan, who made kings and sevens to win the pot. This was Park’s first recorded six-figure score.

With that, Runcan took nearly a 5:1 chip lead into heads-up play with Marques. That gap was decreased in the early going. Marques then won a big pot with a rivered straight besting pocket aces for Runcan to pull nearly even. The two then hashed out a deal to redistribute the prize money a bit, locking up $954,000 for each while leaving the trophy and $67,257 to play for.

Marques overtook the chip lead in time for the final hand of the event. He min-raised to 1,000,000 on the button with KQ and Runcan three-bet shoved for 12,225,000 with QJ from the big blind. Marques made the call and the board came down K6329 and Runcan was eliminated as the runner-up. This was the largest score by far for Runcan. It grew his recorded lifetime earnings to nearly $1.2 million.

Here is a look at the payouts and POY points awarded on the final day:

Photo credits: Rational Intellectual Holdings Ltd. / Danny Maxwell.