Poker News

Antonio Matias Wins First EPT Title at the Vilamoura Championship Main Event

The European Poker Tour has never made a stop in Portugal before, but there is always a first time for everything. I feel that the event was long over due and many others must have felt the same way because the tournament had a nice turnout. Quite a few pro poker players made it out to the Vilamoura Casino including names like Peter Eastgate and Vanessa Rousso.

In all there were 322 players in the tournament and it took a total of six days to finish. At the end of the six days Antonio Matias emerged as the victor and earned himself his first ever EPT Title. Antonio did have some experience playing poker in the past, but most of the time he played online rather then live. Antonio was born in Portugal though and he felt it was necessary that he played in the first ever EPT Event in his country. I’m sure Matias wasn’t planning on winning the event, especially considering the amount of pros in the field, but he managed to turn out a magnificent performance.

Matias started the final day of action in first place and he remained in first place for most of the day. He lost the chip lead a couple times, but always managed to get it back. The second place finisher in the tournament was Pierre Neuville who is a Poker Stars sponsored player. Pierre was the only PokerStars sponsored player to make it to the final table although there were several others in the top 50. With a prize pool of over 1.5 million Euros the final table participants were all paid nicely for their efforts. Below is a list with how much each of the final table players made for their efforts this past week.

Antonio Matias – 404,793 Euros
Pierre Neuville – 257,681 Euros
Jeff Sarwer – 156,170 Euros
Jan Skampa – 117,128 Euros
Joao Silva – 78,085 Euros
Michel Abecassis – 62,468 Euros
Ryan Franklin – 46,851 Euros
Andrei Vlasenko – 31,234 Euros
Claudio Coelho – 23,426 Euros

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